aroslav: Blog

I've been writing non-stop for the past three weeks. Three chapters each of Wayzgoose's A Place Among Peers and aroslav's Drawing on the Dark Side of the Brain 2. Doesn't sound like a lot until you add in the 25 chapters and 83,000 words of Team Manager that I wrote in that time. I've started posting to my Tier 3 Patreon members with the first seven chapters and the response has been positive. Patron Karl said after the first three chapters: "Really enjoying the start of Team Manager. 'Overwhelm' us with as many chapters as you can!"

So, what is it about the timeless story of the reluctant hero who is always being picked on and shunned but finds the character and courage to stand up to the bullies and to protect his growing harem? It's a classic trope and I've picked a new direction for it as High School Sophomore Dennis Enders, the near-sighted shrimp who was abused as a manager for the JV basketball team, comes into his own as manager of the newly formed girls' basketball team. What's not to like about one shrimp geek with thick glasses tossed in with a dozen tall athletic girls at the peak of their teen hormones?

I've sent the first batch of chapters to my editors and cei_mel sent me a note this morning that said, "Your other readers are right--I was hooked at page 50. This story has wide appeal."

Of course, to me, that means I need to read and beef up pages 1-10 so it doesn't take so long the get my readers hooked on the story. 50 pages is the first three chapters. But I'd like you hooked in the first chapter.

I think my brain took that as permission to think about this story all the time and write at every possible moment. So, since I've already written twice as much on Team Manager in three weeks as I have on Dark Side 2 in two months plus, it will probably be the next story I post here on SOL, probably starting in early May. As always, I don't post here until I've finished a story--or at least a completed segment (like I did with the Transmogrification of Jacob Hopkins series). And yes, that means I expect there will be more than one segment to this story as we follow my nearsighted geek through the remainder of his high school career and beyond.

Well, my alpha reader basically looks over my shoulder as I'm writing and makes comments. His included: "Just read the latest chapter. Still great stuff! Keep it coming! This is one of your best in recent memory!"

With encouragement like that, I guess I'll quit blogging for the day and get back to writing. I have an acute case of writer-brain at the moment.

I've never served on a jury before, but I've been ordered to appear in Superior Court for jury selection tomorrow. I'll treat it like research and be looking for new characters or storylines. I could probably describe my circumstances in such a way as to get out of it, but there really isn't a valid excuse. We'll just wait and see what happens.

There are 28 'groups' who got summons. the first seven can check in via zoom. The next 15 (including me) have to appear in person. The remaining six don't have to check in until Tuesday. They didn't say how many were in a group, but it's too large a summons to all fit in the courthouse for selection and still maintain social distancing. We're required to report to the casino conference center the next block over!

I'm feeling less endangered by the group since I got my second dose of vaccine this week, but I'll be cautious nonetheless. So, I'm on the mainland instead of the peninsula, ready to do my civic duty.

I mentioned last week having an idea that was born fully grown from the head of Zeus, as it were. Writing on that idea is progressing apace--in fact, I've got a draft of well over 55,000 words already in two weeks of development. The story is practically writing itself. Yesterday on the ferry to the mainland, my characters were so noisy in my head that as soon as I got to my abode, I had to start writing and completed another chapter.

Today, I've started exposing it to my "Sausage Grinder" patrons on Patreon who like to read the raw unedited version of my stories as I write them. I hope someone comments on it so I can tell if it is as good an idea as it feels to me.

Told from an omnipotent third person point of view, Team Manager watches a new girls' basketball team form in a small school in Iowa. But within this microcosm, we see the "Four-Eyed Runt" of the sophomore class, Dennis, an abused boy who thought he couldn't go back to managing a team after last year's horrid experience, become the beloved team manager for the girls.

Of course, that means some romance is going to slip into the story, and with romance some hanky-panky, as we discover the former cheerleader Brenda, who decides to play basketball instead of cheer and becomes a kind of mother figure to Dennis. What do mother's do for their little babies?

Then there is the tall ace basketball player, fellow-sophomore Natalie, on whom Dennis has always had a crush. They aren't old enough to date, but they can pretend to. And pretend to hold hands. And pretend to kiss...

The story couldn't be complete without the small and rapidly maturing cutie from the freshman class who just happens to be the little sister of the local drug dealer--one of the bullies who tormented Dennis last year.

There is moonshine involved, attempted kidnapping, snowstorms, sleepovers, and teens being teens as their parents attempt to cope with the changes they are seeing and protect their kids from an abundance of bad guys. Join me for the ride on Patreon. I'm writing fast, but I'll only post three or four chapters a week there--at least for a while.

A helpful reader of my blog contacted me last week and told me there was a story in the NIS universe running that also featured a boy becoming team manager for the girls. I don't normally read in that universe and have advised him that I will definitely avoid that story. Story ideas often develop in parallel with other authors and there is no reason not to give my version of one. I'll just avoid being unduly influenced by the other story until I've finished this one.

And, my development of both Drawing on the Dark Side of the Brain 2 and A Place Among Peers is moving forward--perhaps not as quickly, but more deliberately than Team Manager.

So, like I said, there is plenty of excitement in my little world. But no matter how many things run afoul in my life, they aren't at the scale of a 400-meter container ship getting sideways in the Suez Canal and holding up $9billion in oil shipments and $10billion in other cargo shipments every day! Of course, that's all Biden's fault. Not sure how, but I'm sure the spin is coming.

Read on and enjoy! Life in a book at least has chapter breaks.

Sort of. I still have another month at my campsite in Port Townsend before I can hit the road again. Still have another doctor appointment and jury duty to attend to first. But a new adventure has begun in my headspace.

First, let me assure you that I am continuing to make progress on Wayzgoose's A Place Among Peers and on my new story, Drawing on the Dark Side of the Brain 2. It's not unusual for me to have multiple projects going at the same time, which is probably why it seems so slow with only one story currently posting.

And let me tell you, I'm overwhelmed by the reader response to The Assassin. The comments here on SOL have been stellar. It's getting over 5,000 downloads per chapter. And it's currently my all-time best-seller on bookapy! Can't indulge myself with alcohol anymore, according to my cardiologist, but I'm raising an extra glass of sparkling water to the success. I'll also toss out the suggestion that you don't need to be familiar with "The Swarm Cycle" universe to enjoy this character-driven sci fi. Take a gander.

Now, where was I. Oh, yes. New adventure.

Like most old men, I wake up three to seven times a night. Either my mouth is all dried out, I need to pee, or I've worked my way into an uncomfortable position. But Monday morning, I woke up with a vivid dream that simply demanded that I start putting things down on paper. So, I got up at 4:00 in the morning Monday and started making notes. After I made a page of notes so I wouldn't forget it, I put it in my 'idea file' and went to work on new chapters of APAP and Dark Side. I felt very accomplished with both, so I saw no problem with pulling the idea file out and toying with an intro to see if I could manage a decent voice for telling the story. That worked okay, so I started a first chapter. And a second. Right now, I've got six chapters finished and another in the hopper!

This story follows an underdeveloped, nearsighted boy in small-town Iowa and how he finds acceptance among the members of the girls' basketball team that he manages.

Of course, this is just a first draft. GMBusman has been reading the drafts and responding to them, so it seems to be keeping his interest. Otherwise, I'll start posting the first draft for my Sausage Grinder patrons ($10/month) on Patreon next Sunday.

And oh, what I am learning!

I decided on a whim to set the story in a small town in central Iowa. So, of course, I had to start looking up small towns to get a feel for them. Since it's another coming of age story with some of my favorite ingredients, I had to check out the rules and regulations regarding Girls' Basketball in the state. Was that ever an education! Check out the IGHSAU website and look at their history for some fascinating info.

Since there has to be complications in a story like this, I had to look up the laws about moonshine in Iowa and then compare them with the national regulations on distilling, bottling, and selling moonshine. Yes, there actually are some federal regulations on the process. I happen to have part of a bottle of shine my nephew made in West Virginia and I'm pretty sure I could use it to strip the paint off old furniture.

Then there was information I needed from the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration). That's pretty interesting. The DEA has a very active branch in Des Moines if you happen to want a job with them. Des Moines sits at the crossroads of Interstate 80, connecting Salt Lake City in the West and Chicago in the East, and Interstate 35, connecting Minneapolis/St. Paul in the North with Dallas/Fort Worth in the South. As such, it is a major distribution point for both the cartels of Mexico and the traffickers of Canada (according to the DEA site). Methamphetamine, crack cocaine, and marijuana seem to be high on their strike list. Plus a resurgence in heroin use as a cheaper high than prescription drugs. What's a small-town dealer to do?

And, of course, I needed some added information to flesh out my main character, the new Team Manager for the Girls' Basketball team. What are the duties and responsibilities of a high school team manager and how can they be stretched into all kinds of compromising situations? And what is the short, near-sighted team manager going to be thinking among all the statuesque girls of the team? Sounds like a recipe for some new hijinks in one of my favorite subjects. Girls.

I'm going to start posting raw chapters for my Patreon subscribers at the $10 level next Sunday. Those are drafts that are unedited and straight from my keyboard, but if you want to see it first, that's the place. I have no idea yet how long it will take before I have it ready to post on SOL in a clean and edited version. I would guess sometime this summer. I foresee the possibility of an epic run for this story.

It's good to be feeling like my old self and to be able to pump out 40,000 words in a good week. It's been a while coming.

Woohoo!

Did you miss me? Or did you not notice I was gone? Well, either way, I'm happy to have a new story start today. The Assassin is up and running.

The Assassin is a story in the Swarm Cycle Universe but I've listed it as "non-canon." This story will push into the future further than anything else in the cycle and when I do that, I necessarily create a history in its wake. It's non-canon so other Swarm authors won't feel bound to my view of what comes after Year 20. And my view is a little darker than that of most other authors. I don't think the future is quite the paradise that most seem to expect.

The story has, however, been reviewed and approved by the Swarm Authors Group and Thinking Horndog. Anything it says about the first 20 years is consistent with what has been written in the cycle so far. It's what happens next that has me intrigued.

While this story is posting, I'm busy writing two others and hope to have one finished and ready by the time this one concludes at the end of May. It's a sequel to Drawing on the Dark Side of the Brain and is coming along fine. I'm not sure yet if I'll get a new title for it or if it will just be Drawing on the Dark Side of the Brain 2. In this book, Jett and his harem face the hardships of typical sophomores in college, but it is complicated by things like job loss, money running out, a stalker, and the usual problems with interpersonal relationships. And a pandemic that closes the school. Yes, this is the 2020 year for our heroes.

I'm also moving along with the sequel to Wayzgoose's A Place at the Table. I think A Place Among Peers will heighten the tension between Meredith and Liam while they deal with a confab of Leaders at the University, all leading different directions. Because this has a much longer editing cycle than my aroslav stories, I don't expect it to begin posting until late fall or early winter. By that time, one of my other ideas will have taken hold and I should have something else to post for you.

So, here we go. Enjoy The Assassin!

I'm working again! No, not a job. I mean I'm getting some real writing done after feeling under par for for a couple of months. Got two chapters each of two different stories written this week and for the first time in a while, I'm pleased with the results.

The work brings me to a total of six chapters of Drawing on the Dark Side of the Brain 2, and five chapters for Wayzgoose's A Place Among Peers. I feel like I'm back on an even keel again at last.

And I'm ready to begin releasing my new Swarm Cycle story, The Assassin, on Saturday this week. I've gotten pretty excited about that one because it's just character-driven sci fi. I don't think a person would need to be familiar with the rest of the cycle to enjoy the story. But of course, a familiarity with the universe is better. 27 chapters posting one every three days.

On a different note, I have five nominations in five different categories of the Clitorides Awards for the Best in Written Erotica. And a couple of them are a real surprise to me. Like Wayzgoose's American Royalty 1, Coming of Age nominated for Best Romance. That kind of blew me away. And aroslav has been nominated for both Author of the Year and Lifetime Achievement Award. I'm thrilled to have been nominated in these categories. And thank you for nominating Double Team (representing "The Transmogrification of Jacob Hopkins" series) for Best Do-Over Sex Story.

Perhaps the nomination I'm most excited about is seeing Living Next Door to Heaven nominated for the Classic Clitoride Award. Back when LNDtH was first completed in 2015, the Clitorides were still getting rolling again after a six year hiatus from 2006-2013. And that year saw some of SOL's heaviest hitters nominated in the same category for truly outstanding stories: G Younger, Dual Writer, Jay Cantrell, Oyster50, and Argon. I was honored to even be in the same competition.

There's been a resurgence in readership for LNDtH over the past year and LNDtH1 is now up to 1.15 million downloads. Maybe people were looking for something really long to last them through the pandemic. I don't know. I'm just honored that this story has been nominated in the category of Classic Clitoride.

I've scanned through the list of stories nominated in the various categories and they include some of my favorites. I'm ready to start reading some that I haven't gotten to yet. That's one of the best things about the Clitorides. Just reading the stories that have been nominated provides a list of great reading material. It was just a year ago next week that I checked into an RV park in Texas, not knowing that I'd be sitting there for two months before I could travel again and get back up north to my summer campground. I've read a lot this year!

Stay safe and stay well. And go vote for your favorites!