Mushroom: Blog

First, yes I have listened. And almost universally, everybody has said that they agreed with my belief that Valley Girl should not be integrated as I am working on the revision.

And to give an idea, I am currently working on Chapter 35, which should be Chapter 27 when I am done. When completed, it will be around the same length, with no major changes. But I am combining many chapters to make it flow a bit better. It should be about the same size, but maybe 1/4 less chapters.

And I added a new short story into it just now. But I will warn everybody, it may be a bit of a tearjerker to those that have read the series. This time, it is actually written entirely from the point of view that all are aware of, but never actually met. Grace Culver writes about an amazing vacation that she takes with her family, and some things are both reveled that were not known before, and another discovered that none but her are aware of yet.

But even though she was not actually present for Country Boy, she was always there and I felt it was time that her voice be heard.

While still having writers block on my current story, I decided to continue editing and revising "Country Boy, City Girl". There will be no major changes in it, but some things will be slightly changed, including names. So hopefully when I finish, the only repeats of note will be Kim and Kimmie.

I am still on the first book, but I am already trying to plan ahead when I hit book two. And here is what I am wondering. Should I incorporate the "Valley Girl" story into the main one, or leave them separate?

I have been trying to figure that out, and am still not sure which way to go. I know that if I do not integrate them, I will include at the end of a chapter something like "If you want to read about this from Linda's point of view, turn to chapter XXX of 'Valley Girl'." That way somebody has the option, but it is in no way required.

I am just not sure if the story of her downfall being directly incorporated into the main story would be a good idea or not. It is only 8 chapters, and I carefully wrote it so that there would be no real spoilers in her story for the main one. Which is why it has an unusual structure, telling her view of things from the last time she met Pete until the most recent meeting. The only exception being the first two, which took place from before they met, until their confrontation in front of his house when he was on leave.

So any input would be appreciated.

Yes, the story I just posted is indeed part of the Country Boy, City Girl universe. Peter returns home, and is surprised that Amanda is in his living room, and she tells him that Linda had left the house for a bit, and she has some things she has to confess to him.

I can not promise that I will write any more like this, but it came to me last night and I knew I had to write it down. It does not rely upon having read the rest of the series, but it will make a lot more sense if the reader has.

Yes, I am still writing. However, my depression and other issues have made it harder to do so. Not quite "writers block", more that I have found it hard to find the inspiration and energy to write.

But hopefully this will help me get past that. Quite often I will imagine new ideas to play with as I am laying in bed to go to sleep. And the other night, I started to imagine a new villain for Clint might be a Vampire. But a mutant, not undead but more like the Marvel character of Morbius, a "living vampire".

And in laying it out, I realized it would not work for a story in the Night of Madness series. So I wrote it as a stand alone story, and in a rather different style than I have tried before.

But as an FYI, even though I have only published 16 chapters in The Sensei, I have actually finished 18, and am working on number 19. As I tend to have several stored before publishing, I will probably post 17 in the next day or so as I am starting to write that again finally.

But hopefully this unique one will be of interest to some.

Well, I finally went ahead and did my final solution for writers block in The Sensei. Essentially blowing away a chapter and a half of written material and starting that section again.

And that does indeed seem to have solved it. I have no idea, but something I had put down had locked me into something that I just could not continue.