INtrinSicliValud: Blog

Just a quick blog post.

Those of you who caught my stealthy post on Saturday have met “Devin.” His tale, “My First Fan,” was actually my second complete story. Unlike Aiden’s tale, now reorganized into a series of books, or Jim’s lengthy serialized fiction saga, I wanted to focus on basic story structure, i.e. arcs, beats, etc. It was jotted onto papyrus before I gathered all the fancy tools to aid me with this insane scribbling stuff. Nonetheless, it is a direct result of me adjusting my pace, being the first of the stories I now have time to update for posting.

Written early last year, Devin’s and SPOILER’s story was a fun one to scribe, and it has gone through several rewrites since. It is complete with eight chapters and a cheeky teaser of an epilogue, which I shall most likely roll into the last chapter posting. Fair warning, some chapters are shorter and there is a lead time before we get to the sexy bits. Chapters to be posted once a week, bourbon/coffee levels depending – hence the random posting days.

As always, I thoroughly enjoy your feedback. Ongoing discussions with readers provide me with the brain juice to create more goodness. Thanks for reading. Thanks for voting. And thanks for all the fish.

Alright folks, Chapter 12 of “Aiden and the Ring” has been submitted for posting. It’s a little longer since I am introducing two new characters into Aiden’s tale. They are critical to Aiden’s future endeavors, both within this story and in the sequel.

Also, I hate groundhogs. Well, one anyway. Six more weeks of winter! I need to get more bourbon in the house.

Okay, back to writing issues—not that running out of bourbon wouldn’t have a detrimental effect on my scribbling. Works continues apace on “The Immortal.” As I’ve mentioned before, it is both grueling to revise and update, but also incredibly rewarding to meet old friends and add in a few new ones to illuminate the plot better for ya’ll.

What else am I working? Well, five additional stories are in what I call my “Current Focus of Effort” category. They are in various stages of completion and you should start seeing their first chapters of five of them later this year. As written, they are all much shorter than Aiden or Jim.

And that’s kinda the way they are going to stay. Hear me out. When I first posted here, I made promises that I couldn’t keep. I said I would work up sequels if there was interest. Later I qualified that to scores being high enough to warrant the effort. Welp, readers gave me feedback, asking for more. As an aside, every comment has been very positive across the board, so thank you all for that. As a hobbyist, not earning a dime, I live for feedback and to chat with readers.

So, what happened? Nada. I’ve beaten this drum before, but Dan and Daisy are forever stuck “On the Highway.” Heck, one of my silly micro-stroke stories for the BSFSF Event scored higher. The rest of the BSFSF stuff, not so much, but you see my point. My dear sweet Laura from “Owning My Image” managed to score worse. Hence, even though I had a sequel sketched for her, depicting her solo struggles to rule her own multi-media empire, it’s apparently not worth the ammo.

On the flip side, Naomi from “On My Own Terms” has scored high enough and I do have a sequel planned, although the vote numbers are so low they skew my understanding of actual interest. Ugh. Ditto for my planned sequel to “The Student.” Truth in advertising; they do slip onto the Current Focus list every once in a while, but they are not priorities.

The bottom line is I am continuing to write and post stories that I love to write and post. That hasn’t changed. However, using any kind of data to guide sequels is…problematic. Bear with me; it’s only been five months and I am still adjusting.

As always, please let me know what you think. I’m not kidding. Writing for me is a solitary hobby and your comments/emails have kept me guzzling coffee-laden bourbon…or is it the other way round? Anyway, keeping me typing until the wee hours of the night.

Stay safe…and warm; damned rodent.

Short and sweet this week. Got lotsa editing and hopefully mo’ bettah’ scribbling to do. What a hobby! The muses will not leave me alone.

I submitted Chapter 7 for posting this morning. Things continue to heat up between them as Jim and Mandy explore what is driving them closer. I know ya’ll are sick of hearing this, but I do love them both. Just like all my characters. And they are on an exceedingly long and winding path. Oh, and over-the-top as well, because I love that too. Sorry, not sorry. Ha, ha.

Elsewhere, the latest editing yard release is chugging along. After a fresh-eyed read, I ended up rounding out a bit character. So it has needed a bit o’ tweaking. Not to worry. I am hopeful you should start seeing its eight or so chapters appear weekly beginning next month. It’s a romance, but one of mine, so there will be…complications. Yeh, complications. Uh, huh.

I am on schedule and submitted Chapter 11 of “Aiden and the Ring,” wherein our young hero is still uncovering its powers and limitations, as well as his own. Chapter 12 looks good so far and will slip into final edits later today. However, Chapter 13 ended up getting split as it needed a lot more prose to work well.

Meanwhile, I am pushing forward on what started as a private “short” story for a follower that has turned into an epic saga. Have I said how much I love my characters…. With the client’s permission, that tale may see the light of day at some point, but it is still far from finished. And I am already nervous about the lack of ending to “The Immortal,” even though it has a bazillion already-scribbled chapters yet for you to read before we even get close to a conclusion.

Speaking of which, I am polishing the next installments of “The Immortal.” And when I say polishing, I actually mean more than doubling the size of the chapters since there is so much more detail and backstory to add as well as using mo’ betta wirdz. Fun, immense fun, but time-consuming and brain-twisting.

Finally, coming out of the rough draft deep-freezer and heading for the editing yards, I have four more complete tales. Since they are shorter than Aiden or Jim, my plan is to get ‘em scrubbed and release them a chapter per week as they come out of the yards. We shall see. The fates are as fickle as the muses.

This morning I submitted chapter 6 of “The Immortal” for posting. As Jim enjoys his newfound renewal, it’s his turn to discover how much Mandy likes to play. Oh, and vampires.

Which is key to this week’s blog post. Much of the prose in this chapter was added to provide readers a window into what I already understood. When I wrote this story just for my own consumption, such data existed only as mere sketches in a reference document.

Why is that important? I am, in essence, adding an external plot and conflict into this tale “on the fly.” Which requires building an outline so I know when/where/how to add appropriate underpinnings. At the same time, I must enhance my character development structures to ensure they are all tracking this newly added information, since it is now in much greater detail. It’s sort of like shoving a skeleton into an existing body.

So, we all should go from a fantastical MFFFFFFF+ harem piece with a hint of paranormality to one with a bit more depth and background. A bit. Not a massive opus on Jim’s background and revelations of his creation. At least I haven’t uncovered it myself just yet, so perhaps in the future. Also, be aware that even doing this “bit” requires quite a bit of weaving and adjusting of the existing prose.

All of which brings me to the critical part. Jim’s tale is one of many I am working, including a number of recent, and hence better written, ones that deserve to shine. And that takes time, of which there is a finite amount.

As such, I am removing my self-imposed requirement to post every Thursday from this day forward.

Now, hold on! Before you all unfollow and raise interwebz pitchforks, hear me out. Relieving me of the weekly requirement will enable me to uphold my promise to post only completed works, since I will have time to finish them. Furthermore, it will enable me to launch several stories that only require editing since I can focus on them without the pressure to produce every single Thursday. So, if this works the way I intend, you will see both greater and more-varied content, but at less stringently scheduled intervals.

As always, I value your feedback and we shall see how this works. It’s a journey.