I'm trying something new. Contrary to popular opinion, I do listen to the critiques, and I understand the majority of them.
I, too, often want the writers of some of my favorite stories to post more, but I now understand why they don't or, more to the point, can't.
Simply put, it's not easy. The inspiration comes to many like a bolt of lightning, and to others, once in a great moon.
My particular problem is I write, and to me, it's all shit! I have honest to Bob trouble trying to pick the best stuff to go with for publishing. I have my outlines, but the in-between stuff is honestly, the hardest and most interesting reasons for writing this story. I want to show it all, but some of these are really downright terrible.
I'll bet there are a few out there wishing I had someone else reading then deciding since I'm choosing the wrong stuff. I've admitted it before: the secondary story was a spur-of-the-moment idea that really got the juices flowing. I think most can agree the initial idea of both simultaneous storylines co-existing was a good try, but it fell off the mark. Like, it's way off the mark. Rather than on my computer here in San Antonio, the fall hit somewhere outside Timbuktu.
The more I wrote for it, the more I realized I was not prepared for that storyline. The outline I came up with was less than perfect. In fact, I wrote the outline in a single sitting, and it went pretty much as I thought it would. But then it hits a wall, and the idea to get around that wall just never came.
Don't get me wrong! I think what we have of that storyline came out wonderfully, it just sort of petered out.
I've come to a decision. I will eventually remove the "Future Tim" section from "Mayhem in a Pill." I will make corrections and repost as an alternate timeline. I came to this final decision because I've been working on the next chapter of THAT storyline for at least three months. I have failed it. I think I need to start from the beginning with that one and retool it. It's worth saving. And I also think it would be nice if I posted something besides this one major story and a quasi-try at one of SOL's wonderful contests.
That one was written two days before the deadline, and I worked right up until the deadline on that one and then was told I missed the deadline an hour earlier. That's why the deadline now shows the exact time due, which is Eastern Standard Time.
That's another one I want another shot with, but I think I'll deal with it another day and repost with more detail. It deserves it and the current version reads like I cut it off too hastily. That was kind of jarring and I think it's salvageable.
As for Mayhem, I am working on it this weekend, with everyone worried about the coming cold into Texas and each home worried about the state's power grid holding up like the last time we saw these kinds of temperatures. We Texans don't do too well when the temps drop below freezing. The power grid does even worse. It's falling apart and the fixes for it have been slowly dwindled away to basically thoughts and prayers.
So let's regroup. Mayhem is not finished. The story will be fixed, and the separate timeline will be removed before posting for sale. And I will eventually also take another shot at "A New Quiver for Cupid."
Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Some of you might remember another entry for another earlier contest, that was removed by my request and was another terrible try at that fabled contest. The story idea is good, but when I started writing, I quickly realized it would be much longer than the size specified for the contest. I cut out stuff with a chainsaw instead of a scalpel and I should not have done that. That's why no one has seen it since that fateful contest.
Ugh. Too longwinded. Back to writing or maybe MILF porn, I have not yet decided.
Tee hee.
--Shinerdrinker