aroslav: Blog

I've made it to Las Vegas and am settled into a nice condo a mile from the Hard Rock Hotel and Convention Center where the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo starts today. My volunteer staff (Can you believe six people have come to help promote my books?) will be wandering the show, talking to models, and working to record the experience as we immerse ourselves in porn. I mean erotic art.

This is seriously tough work. Do you know how difficult it is for a writer to make every character unique and memorable? What do her breasts look like? How big are her nipples? How sensitive? Are they soft or artificially hardened? What scent is she wearing? What do her legs feel like? What do her lips taste like? I'm here at AVN doing primary research for my stories!

And I feel bad that you can't be here as one of my volunteers. Our all-access Industry passes get us into all the seminars like "Premium Platforms: Finding the Next Level of Social Media Marketing", and "From the Bedroom to the Boardroom - Bella French's Path to ManyVids CEO", and "What's the Big Idea? The First Annual Disruptors' Panel".

The show floor includes hundreds of products, talent, and services booths with opportunity to make contact with favorite stars. Yes, I plan to get a hug from Molly Stewart, Kendra Cole, Fallon West, and others. They are here and waiting!

The Adult Novelty Expo-our all-access pass gets us in there, as well-will feature some surprising toys, costumes, sexual aids, and other products that might surprise you. Do you need a pussy-beard? There's a vendor that sells a paste on bush for those who are shaved but want a little hair for the party. Are you in the market for a playroom swing set? One that you can strap your lover into and swing into her? Need new ropes? Any of our five hundred different dildo and vibrator models? I'll be carefully checking out those exhibits, too.

The real work is at the parties. Last night we attended an informal welcome party for the trade and engaged in a lengthy conversation with managers of a Cam Studio, Foxy Dreams, in Columbia who are interested in adapting my books and short stories into fantasy scripts. Yes? Who wants to see Art Étrange drape a model in his studio and have his way with her? I thought so. Tonight, we'll be at the Girlfriends Films 18th anniversary party and will be looking for more contacts.

It seems a shame you aren't here.

So, I'm making it possible for you to attend vicariously. I've opened a private photo display for my few thousand closest friends to see what I see each day of the expo. I'll upload new photos early every day (Pacific Time) and you can tune in to see them. The Pre-Show Registration Day photos are already up. It sets the stage for what we're doing here, but won't get into the real fun stuff until tomorrow. Bookmark the page and come back each day this week.

http://devonlayne.com/avnx/

Send me email if there are things or people you are especially interested in seeing and I'll try to get a photo. Let's party!

Tomorrow, my new do-over, Double Take, starts posting here on SOL. I'm very excited about it. Book 1 of 47 chapters is written, edited (thanks to Pixel the Cat and Old Rotorhead), and ready to upload for posting every three days. I'll upload the whole book in advance so you don't have to worry about me croaking and leaving it unfinished. I'm already sixteen chapters into Book 2 and I'm having a blast writing this adventure.

This story is a little lighter than some of my epics. Of course, there is teenage angst because there are teenagers. This has far more to do with an eighty-year-old in high school and dealing with a world that is not at all what he remembered.

Sex and the Single Freshman. I struggle with coding my stories for sex content with every story I write. I received a number of emails from people who said they got tired of all the sex in Living Next Door to Heaven. Another batch of readers wrote that the code 'Some Sex' was inappropriate because there was no sex at all in the first three and a half books of LNDtH. One went so far as to complain that I must not have much experience with sex if I thought what these kids were doing was still sex without penetration.

I think Double Take has slightly more sex in it than the early books of LNDtH. Let's face it: Why would an old man want to go back to his fourteen-year-old body if it wasn't to fuck fourteen-year-old girls? At the same time, I think the 'Much Sex' code paints an expectation of 'real' sex in every chapter. And there isn't. So, I'll code this story once again as 'Some Sex' and when asked how much sex there is in the story, I'll just say "Enough.'

What's it about? I gave the very short blurb for the story in my blog post on Christmas. Here is the long synopsis:

In a classic erotic do-over, an old man gets hit by lightning, sucked into a wormhole, abducted by aliens, shot, electrocuted, caught in a terrorist attack, trapped in a fusion explosion, or otherwise meets his demise. In the instant before death, he is granted his wish to do his life over again, correcting the mistakes he made. He (almost always male) is returned to his fourteen-year-old body complete with all his memories of growing up the first time and near Wikipedic knowledge of everything that happened in his life.

Armed with this knowledge, he can correct his own life errors, become fabulously wealthy by either betting on obscure sporting events or the correct stocks or by stealing a later invention and introducing it early. His great experience and accumulated wisdom allow him to correct political errors of the past, eliminating terror attacks, stopping wars, improving border security, and holding down inflation. And let us not forget that this old man can now apply his accumulated knowledge of women to seduce all the fourteen-year-old girls he wants to because he's really only fourteen again.

Jacob Hopkins is one such old man. Life was good. It just wasn't long enough. At eighty years old, he is dying and wants to regain to his youth. He has no burning desire to change the world. He just isn't ready to die. And someone has decided that's okay.

But Jacob is in for a major surprise. His new life is in an alternate reality. Things just aren't the way he remembered. People aren't who he remembered them to be. And there is nothing he can do to change history. It's already past.

Starting tomorrow: January 11, 2019.

Here's my mad idea. As usual, I won't turn on voting until ten or eleven chapters into the story so people have enough material to make a judgment about what they are voting for. Let's say at the end of Part I: Transmogrification. That's eleven chapters.

I will, however, turn on public comments. And I plan to use them differently than in the past. Usually, I refrain from participating in the comments unless I am asked, as the author, a specific question in comments. Then I'm happy to jump in and respond. But I don't use the comment section to argue my points or to defend what I've written. I've written what I've written. Like it or not. That's what it is. Me mansplaining it isn't going to change the story.

I want to try something a little different this time, though. I'm going to try participating in the comments as Jacob, the main character. I always enjoy role-playing and my characters like to jump into my head at odd times anyway, so I'll occasionally post something at the end of a chapter from Jacob's perspective and respond to comments as if I were Jacob.

This great experiment might last all of ten minutes. Or it might be something I keep going through the whole story. We'll see.

Now here's the real question: How much am I going to cry through this story?

I know that I often have highly emotional scenes in my stories. Just having re-read and suffered with you through Living Next Door to Heaven 3: What Were They Thinking? I wept at reliving some of the horrid events of the original series. I'm not ready to utterly drain myself emotionally this time. I won't say there won't be sad parts or moving parts, but I'm not planning to kill off major beloved characters, break people's hearts, or send anyone into the depths of depression.

So, try to keep my spirits up and keep me happy for the next year or so, okay? I'll try not to transfer any of that into my story.

One way for you to acknowledge your appreciation for authors is to nominate favorite stories for Clitorides Awards. I say this on behalf of all authors, not just myself. If you've especially enjoyed a story that has sex in it and was concluded in 2018, nominate it for a Clitorides Award at https://clitoridesawards.org/nominate.php. Use your same log-in as for SOL. Some of your favorite authors' stories have already been nominated. G Younger, Michael Loucks, Oyster50, Al Steiner, Lubrican, rlfj, and new author ProfessorC. But the number of nominations is what gets a story into the finals when they are announced in March. Get on there and nominate!

I have completed three stories on SOL this year that are eligible for nomination. The Props Master Prequel: Behind the Ivory Veil, Drawing on the Dark Side of the Brain, and Living Next Door to Heaven 3: What Were They Thinking? Please do not nominate any of the three stories posted my alter ego, Wayzgoose. I appreciate your support, but those stories are 'No Sex' stories and are ineligible.

Thank you all for your continued support, your email messages, and comments. As many authors have affirmed in the past, your comments and email are all the compensation we get.

Enjoy Double Take!

I'm a little late posting my season's greetings. I'm hoping that whatever winter holiday you celebrate, it is a joyous occasion, and that if you don't celebrate a winter holiday, you have a joyful winter season anyway. I certainly am. Sitting out beside my fire in Quartzsite, AZ and enjoying a PDR 1878 Capa Oscura cigar to cap off the day.

And here is some other good news. I've received all 47 chapters of Double Take Book 1 back from my fine editors, Pixel the Cat and Old Rotorhead. Without them, my works would not be as clean as they are and I thank them loudly. Having all the chapters in hand and having finished formatting them this morning, I've scheduled the first two chapters to post here on SOL on January 11. From then on, the chapters will post every three days, concluding Memorial Day weekend. If all continues to go well, by the time this one finishes, I'll have Book 2 ready to post without an interruption. Here's the blurb:

Life was good. It just wasn't long enough. Eighty-year-old Jacob Hopkins is dying and wishes to return to his fourteen-year-old body. He has no burning desire to change the world. He just isn't ready to die. And someone has decided that's okay. But Jacob is in for a major surprise. His new life is within a new reality. Things just aren't exactly the way he remembered.

There will be a new story from Wayzgoose in the New Year, as well, but I'll let my alter ego tell about that in his New Year's Day post.

[edit] And just so you know, Living Next Door to Heaven 3: What Were They Thinking will conclude on Friday, December 28. Hope you've enjoyed this tale.

My daughter visited for six days over Solstice and we spent our holiday exploring Cabeza Prieta Wilderness. If you look that up on a map, you'll see that you can't get there from here. After watching the 15-minute required video about all the ways you can die in the Wilderness, we were granted back-country passes to cross the Barry M. Goldwater Military Range to get to the Wildlife Preserve and spent the day 4-wheeling in my very scratched up truck.

If you'd like to read more of the story and see some pictures of the adventure, you can find them on my First Exit blog at http://firstexit0.blogspot.com/2018/12/into-wilderness.html. Not satisfied with trying to kill me in my truck, my daughter led me on a hike two days later to a mountain canyon where the only native California Palms in Arizona grow. And after the hike, we had to take pictures from about half or three-quarters of a mile away.

All told, we had a great time and she did not succeed in receiving her meagre inheritance.

In a few days, my friend Mark will be joining me here in Quartzsite and January 23 will find us in Las Vegas for the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo. I'll open a private section on my website to post pictures from the Expo for your prurient entertainment. Mark and his girlfriend will be two of the six friends that accompany me as my entourage to the show. Maybe this will be the year I find a distributor for my books in the adult industry. Or maybe I'll land a deal to write a movie script. I'm sure I can come up with some dialog that is better than "Uh. Uhh! Harder! Faster!"

Aside from that, I'll be showing (and hopefully selling) my books during January at the Readers' Oasis Bookstore in Quartzsite, famous for its "naked owner". Yes, this guy runs around the store and outdoor area wearing nothing but a cock sock. Seems like the right market for my books!

So, that's the news from my winter haven in Southern Arizona. Happy Jollydaze!

I'm a little late posting my season's greetings. I'm hoping that whatever winter holiday you celebrate, it is a joyous occasion, and that if you don't celebrate a winter holiday, you have a joyful winter season anyway. I certainly am. Sitting out beside my fire in Quartzsite, AZ and enjoying a PDR 1878 Capa Oscura cigar to cap off the day.

And here is some other good news. I've received all 47 chapters of Double Take Book 1 back from my fine editors, Pixel the Cat and Old Rotorhead. Without them, my works would not be as clean as they are and I thank them loudly. Having all the chapters in hand and having finished formatting them this morning, I've scheduled the first two chapters to post here on SOL on January 11. From then on, the chapters will post every three days, concluding Memorial Day weekend. If all continues to go well, by the time this one finishes, I'll have Book 2 ready to post without an interruption. Here's the blurb:

Life was good. It just wasn't long enough. Eighty-year-old Jacob Hopkins is dying and wishes to return to his fourteen-year-old body. He has no burning desire to change the world. He just isn't ready to die. And someone has decided that's okay. But Jacob is in for a major surprise. His new life is within a new reality. Things just aren't exactly the way he remembered.

There will be a new story from Wayzgoose in the New Year, as well, but I'll let my alter ego tell about that in his New Year's Day post.

My daughter visited for six days over Solstice and we spent our holiday exploring Cabeza Prieta Wilderness. If you look that up on a map, you'll see that you can't get there from here. After watching the 15-minute required video about all the ways you can die in the Wilderness, we were granted back-country passes to cross the Barry M. Goldwater Military Range to get to the Wildlife Preserve and spent the day 4-wheeling in my very scratched up truck.

If you'd like to read more of the story and see some pictures of the adventure, you can find them on my First Exit blog at http://firstexit0.blogspot.com/2018/12/into-wilderness.html. Not satisfied with trying to kill me in my truck, my daughter led me on a hike two days later to a mountain canyon where the only native California Palms in Arizona grow. And after the hike, we had to take pictures from about half or three-quarters of a mile away.

All told, we had a great time and she did not succeed in receiving her meagre inheritance.

In a few days, my friend Mark will be joining me here in Quartzsite and January 23 will find us in Las Vegas for the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo. I'll open a private section on my website to post pictures from the Expo for your prurient entertainment. Mark and his girlfriend will be two of the six friends that accompany me as my entourage to the show. Maybe this will be the year I find a distributor for my books in the adult industry. Or maybe I'll land a deal to write a movie script. I'm sure I can come up with some dialog that is better than "Uh. Uhh! Harder! Faster!"

Aside from that, I'll be showing (and hopefully selling) my books during January at the Readers' Oasis Bookstore in Quartzsite, famous for its "naked owner". Yes, this guy runs around the store and outdoor area wearing nothing but a cock sock. Seems like the right market for my books!

So, that's the news from my winter haven in Southern Arizona. Happy Jollydaze!

That's one of the things that just happens when you live alone with a few dozen fictional characters running around loose in your skull. Sorry about that. Hope everyone who celebrates had a good day!

I wrote. Just like the day before and the day after. I'm writing my little fingers off. So far, 131,000 words this NaNoWriMo month. And today isn't over.

I've been busy on two projects, as you might be aware. The first is a Wayzgoose project that will appear here probably about May. Wild Woods is the sequel to the previously posted City Limits. I expect there will be only two books in this series, so all the open plot lines left in City Limits should get closed as I write the last three chapters of the Wild Woods this week. Then it will sit on my editors' desks fermenting during December and I'll start rewriting in January.

The second project is now being funneled to Pixel the Cat and Old Rotorhead for editing and I'm getting chapters back. Rotorhead has been on vacation in Europe but I expect he'll be getting his two cents in before I'm ready to start posting Part I here in January.

Double-Take is the story of an eighty-year-old man cast back into his fourteen-year-old body, only to find there are significant differences between the reality he knew as a kid and the reality he now faces. All his reasonable memories are intact, but it is his experience rather than his memory that he will need to get him through high school.

I'm having fun with it and comments from advance readers seem to indicate they are enjoying the story as it's being written. It's great to get that kind of feedback from my patrons.

Well, I just thought I needed to give you a little update.

One more thing I'll touch on and bury down here at the bottom so no one actually sees it. I try to leave comments open on my stories so readers can respond and discuss them. I don't participate in the comments section unless I'm asked a direct question. It's not a place for me to try to explain things or justify them. I pop in and answer. I read the comments every day, though.

I will cut off comments on a story if they degenerate into people trying to argue about things that aren't relevant to the story. C'mon, guys. I write plenty of shit you can complain about or argue about. Don't drag in irrelevant political arguments. Exchange Facebook addresses if you want to engage in that senseless shit.

I also greatly appreciate your corrections sent through email and I try to get them corrected as quickly as possible (which means after November). These come in as anything from someone spotting an incorrect pronoun or extra quotation mark to language experts who take the time to correct my German or Spanish or Latin or whatever else I'm pretending to speak. I really appreciate this as it improves the story for a wide range of readers. Keep sending those cards and letters!

Thanks.