Had a new story idea whilst sick and had to get that out. Part 3 drops next week, then we'll get back to Susan's story, and I know I need to do something with Helen after that. Somewhere in there, I'd like to get a second Pink Zone story in. (Judging by the response, I think that's going to become a universe as well.)
One of the big complaints I've always gotten about my first three stories ("A Conversation Amongst Equals," "Great Day For It," and "How My Day Was.") is that they were done entirely in dialogue. "A Conversation Amongst Equals" was the very first thing I wrote after a 20-year depression-induced writer's block. Both as an exercise and because I wasn't confident in my ability to describe a sex scene well, I decided to make it entirely dialogue.
When I decided to do "Great Day For It," I had another problem in that now I had to do a lesbian scene, so figured I'd solve that problem by doing the same thing and have it turn out to be Julie telling Troy the story of how she met the new friend she'd brought home, Claire, while he went down on her.
Then it was Troy's turn to receive while he told her the story of how he met Susan, and I realized that because I'd done "Great Day For It" in dialogue and "How My Day Was" happened immediately after it, I was forced to do the same thing again.
Something that's kind of been on my "to do" list since has been to go back and rewrite those three stories and flesh them out. However, there's other stuff I want to do as well, so I decided to use my own horrible ear infection as inspiration here and tell the story of the events leading up to "A Conversation Amongst Equals" instead. Part 3 will end right before it begins, with a little epilogue.
Incidentally, if it's of interest to people, the first place I usually post everything is on the Garden of MC (mcgarden.com), because that's been the best place for me to get feedback thus far. I follow up each chapter with a sort of "commentary" post as well. Some people like them. I mean, I'm not full of myself enough to think anyone's interested in "My Process" or anything, (Incidentally, if I ever use the phrase "My Process" without the quotes, someone kindly come up behind me and put me out of my misery as quickly and painlessly as possible. I'll be too far gone to do it myself.) however, I thought it might interest people to know what was going on in my head at certain points.
As I wrote the end of this story, I realized "If I were to decide I was done writing Troy and Julie, this WOULD be a good note to go out on," however, I'm not done with them. They still have more stories to tell and more new friends to meet.
And, as always, they'd probably like you.