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.