aroslav: Blog

I uploaded the serial Double Take before I decided if I would make it one super long serial (like Living Next Door to Heaven with five books in one long serial) or if I would create a series and make each book (I think there will be four but there might be five) a separate serial. Eventually, I decided to make them separate since that gives people who are offended and disgusted but force themselves to read till the bitter end a chance to bail out and not continue. Of course, those who bailed three chapters before the end don't need to worry.

Okay. I forgot to mark Book 1: Double Take as finished when it was posted. I've corrected that now. So, today, with chapter 47, Double Take comes to an end. Book 2: Double Time will begin on June 1.

Now to confuse things thoroughly some more. I consider the entire Transmogrification story to be one story. It won't make any sense to start with Book 2. So, when Double Time starts, it will begin with Part V: Reincarnation, Chapter 48. There is a total of 51 chapters (ending at 98) and 180,000 words in Book 2.

In case you're wondering, so far, I've written 161 chapters and am well into Book 4. This series is going on for a long time!

Comments on the story pretty much went off the rails when I revealed a character was a trans woman in chapter 44. I don't care. I didn't interrupt the flow of twenty some comments on old people using slide rules. I'm certainly not going to get in the middle of comments by people offended by my introduction of a trans woman.

What I am going to do is continue to write material that challenges the ideas and conceptions of the old man that lives inside Jacob Hopkins. I will not back down on that. Some of those challenges will be to the right and some to the left. It really makes no difference to me who has their delicate worldview offended. If I was concerned about it, I'd have followed the typical mindless do-over formula and by this stage in the story he'd be fabulously wealthy and fucking his mother, as well as all the fourteen-year-olds in school. Two things I find particularly offensive.

I do get inspired by some of the comments and can't hold myself back. Here's a bit I posted on Facebook based on a single sentence I found intriguing and how it related to many other things I find on my newsfeed.

The comment received on the story began: "Ya know... that is really a dum comment and perfectly illustrates why some of us got Fed up with the accusations from the educated and informed." The comment inspired a bullet list, if you will.

• Being uneducated and uninformed does not equate to 'having common sense.' They aren't mutually exclusive but they aren't the same thing. People don't get common sense educated out of them. Common sense isn't something everyone is born with. It's learned… like algebra.
• Being uneducated and uninformed does not equate to being able to earn a good living as a skilled laborer. Many people lack the skills and the ability or opportunity to gain them in order to be a well-paid skilled laborer. The vast majority are unskilled labor and unless the union steps in, they are unlikely to be paid a living wage.
• Being uneducated and uninformed does not mean one's opinions and beliefs are as good as any other. They are indicative of what one prefers to believe, regardless of what is true.
• Being uneducated and uninformed does not mean a person is simply smarter than the educated. It gives rise to the 'ignorant elite,' who believe their lack of education makes them superior to those who 'waste their money' on college.

Sadly, pretty much everything I've said here also applies to the educated and informed. Being educated and informed doesn't guarantee common sense, a good job, valid opinions, or elitist superiority.

Now I need to get back to actually writing something worthwhile.

"And I certainly refuse to change the story to suit their whims." -Isaac Asimov, The Best of Isaac Asimov

You can read more on my blog. Or don't.

If comments, email, and general righteous indignation are any indication, I expect I've lost about 20% of my readership of Double Take this week. Sorry to see you all go, just three chapters from the end of the story. Your choice.

In 2016, it was a surprise to me to discover I was a liberal. I didn't know that. I thought I was just trying to be a good and kind person. Apparently, however, I simply don't have the hardcore binary worldview necessary to be anything else. I don't work on a binary mindset. Black and white views of the world don't mesh with the technicolor vision I have acquired through my travels and life experience. Call it liberal, progressive, socialist, anti-religious, or whatever you want, I will continue to paint realistic and accepting views of people of all kinds and will not be subjected to narrow visions of sexual identity, religious ideology, or political parties.

Hit hard by the response to my story, I decided I might as well offend as many people as I can and write about my position regarding the anti-abortion laws that are popping up around the country like cancers on our civil liberties. You can read the blog post, if you have the stomach for it, at firstexit0.blogspot.com

Since I've had such a good time beginning chapters of Double Take with quotes from other, more famous and better written stories, I'll leave you with this:

"And I certainly refuse to change the story to suit their whims." -Isaac Asimov, The Best of Isaac Asimov

Here's an extra that applies to the whole story:

"Don't go getting offended my friend, I have much worse things to say to you."
― Riley Amos Westbrook, Journey from Atremes

I left Quartasite on schedule, Tuesday 4/16. I've been here in Vegas a lot longer than I planned to be. Was just going to pull in for supplies Wednesday and leave Friday. Then I discovered this is the busiest weekend of the year for Valley of Fire and Cathedral Gorge State Parks. Those were tops on my list for my next campsite. With the park ranger's advice, I booked in this downtown RV park for three more nights and will be heading out tomorrow morning.

So far this month, I've succeeded in writing a chapter of Double Date every day. Double Date is book 3 in the Double Take series that is now called "The Transmogrification of Jacob Hopkins". Double Take (book 1) is nearly complete on SOL and has finished for my patrons. Double Time (book 2) will begin on June 1 on SOL. And Double Date (book 3) is currently slated to start about November 1. And yes, I believe there will be more. I have titles selected for about ten! On SOL, Double Take has just entered its fourth and final part. This book ends at chapter 47 and Double Time picks up at chapter 48, Part V.

In the meantime, I've started posting under the name Wayzgoose this week with Wild Woods, the sequel to City Limits. Thank you for the positive response in email and comments to this first chapter. It will post every Friday into July. This coming Saturday, I'll begin posting Municipal Blondes, the sequel to my recently finished For Blood or Money. I hope to start the rewrite of its sequel, Stocks and Bondage, in June, so it will be ready by fall.

Three books, Wild Woods, Municipal Blondes, and Double Time are set to release to the public on June 23. Since Amazon chose to ban the publication of Double Take on its site, I don't plan to offer Double Time to them. Doesn't make sense. So I'll be selling them direct and will provide the purchase info when it is released.

In the meantime, I find that Jacob's world continues to deviate further from the reality he understood of his V1 world. And he from his V1 personality. I've just reached the point where Jacob is about to reveal his secret to Beca and Rachel. Their responses are quite different!

So far, I've spent all morning working on blog posts, website updates, and my Patrons. If I'm going to keep up with the pace of a chapter a day, I need to wrap this up and start writing.

Hope you've all had a great Ishtar weekend filled with sex and fertility!