Going Slow

New blog post! I know it's been a while, but it's been a lot less newsworthy year than last year. I'm sorry to the few fans I have for my silence.

So, what's up, you ask? Writing. The difference this year is that almost none of it is in service to one project. I've had bursts of creativity all year that lead to very productive outpourings of story content, but never on the same story, and never on any of the projects that I feel are the most important to complete. All of my ideas for more mainstream TG novels are percolating. The sequels to "Alien Body Suit: Under Her Skin" are still plotted and outlined but not started. (OK, maybe part of the first chapter of ABS:IM has been worked on, but that's it.) There's a story for a Topside Press collection that has a deadline of December 1st that is only half written.

What I have been working on are two 100+ page stories that are only getting warmed up. One starts off in a way that reads like standard TG transformation fiction but evolves into a family drama. The other has a similar hook at the beginning that's becoming an identity crisis for the main character. I've also worked on maybe a dozen other stories that are 20 - 50 pages long with a variety of themes and transformation methods.

It's very frustrating professionally to find myself wanting to play instead of doing the work that's needed to move my career forward. In terms of pages written, this might actually be my most productive year ever. In terms of projects completed, it's among my worst. The only real silver lining I can see is that if these longer works ever get put up on Amazon, the large page counts will mean more pages read and more revenue for me. I'm also hoping that a longer work at a reasonable price will result in more direct purchases. All of that will - I hope - put me closer to being financially independent as an author.

That's the real goal: to make enough per month to quit my day job. Once I'm my own boss, I'll have an extra forty hours a week to write. Writing at a rate of about a page an hour, that's about 160 pages a month. More if you figure in an extra five hours a week saved by eliminating my commute (20 extra pages a month) and that I'm likely to eat and write at the same time through my lunch (5 hours a week, 20 pages a month). That's a full length novel every three months figuring in editing and rewriting of drafts. Four novels a year. At shorter lengths, that would be two stories a month, or twenty-four stories a year. With those kinds of numbers, I might actually have a body of work I could be proud of before I'm ready to retire.

"What Have You Done For Me Lately?"

... and by "You," I mean me. What have *I* as an author done for *You* the reader lately?

First, there's "Head Games." This is the first of many (I hope) titles that I will be making available through Amazon. For now, it's electronic only because it's easier to format and setup. My hope over time is to offer a mix of short stories, novelettes and novels in both print and electronic eBook formats.

As my second step towards that goal, I'm going to be putting out a short story. I have four done with a fifth very close to completion. Three of the four completed stories and the one that is close to being done are part of a four story series. They are about ten pages long in my preferred format for writing, so all of them would be available on Amazon for $2.99. For now, the tentative plan is to put one of these out a month over the summer. I'm looking for cover art with the hope of putting the story up the weekend of June 1st.

Third, I have one more novelette length story completed with a second a handful of pages from completion. Like the short stories, my hope is to put them out about once a month over the next couple of months. That means that for the next couple of months, there would be a short story and a longer story coming out from me every month, with more short stories through the end of summer.

I do have a third story that's longer completed, but this one is a Christmas story. I had hoped to get this one illustrated and put up for free at TG Comics for the holiday, but that fell through because of several issues that are going to be next to impossible for me to work around. Femur was very gracious and supportive - as always - but can't publish it there due to some of the content. (There's children in the story, and even though their role is non-sexual, there's a strict "no minors" rule for content on TG Comics. Why? The credit card providers require it.)

Last of all, my goal for the summer is to turn my outlines for the sequels to "Under Her Skin" into stories. That would put something like a two year gap between the original story and its sequels, with time to illustrate and format for publication. That seems like long enough. (I know, I know ... maybe a little too long.) After that, I have a script I'm aching to write. Along the way, I expect I'll keep writing stories to keep myself interested like I did with "Head Games," the Christmas story and the four short stories.

It's a labor of love, but I ache to share it with all of you! Now all I have to do is find a cover image from Shutterstock to use with those darn short stories and the longer one for next month ...

New Year's Resolution 2014

I'm sitting at home waiting for the ball to drop in Times Square. At this time, as I always do, I'm looking forward to the new year. Here are my goals in no particular order:

1. Turn my outlines for the two sequels to "Alien Body Suit: Under Her Skin" into completed stories.
2. Publish / find a home for a number of the stories I've completed but not released. (TPF, TotTC, HG, and a trilogy of shorter stories in the same universe I don't think I've mentioned before: AH, INF, BU)
3. Finish the stories I have mostly - but not all the way - completed. (COT, TB, BaM, MAU: SEP)
4. Complete my outline and start work on my screenplay project: CS.
5. Set up a webpage as a home for the content / stories I intend to start self-publishing. It's past time for me to jump on the Amazon bandwagon.
6. Start work on the on one or both of the two book projects I've had in mind for a while now.
7. Make time to write. This resolution involves watching less TV, which is a huge, HUGE time suck for me.

There are a couple more minor goals, like how many pages a week I want to write, forming an LLC, getting illustrations done for my stories to be published and so forth, but the ones above are the biggies.

Next Up

Now that ABS: Under Her Skin is up, I've been fleshing out the outline for the first of the two sequels, ABS:IM. I'd like to have outlines for both sequels done ASAP. My goal is to have both sequels written by the end of the summer so that they can go up fairly close together when they do eventually get illustrated and come out.

Alien Body Suit: Under Her Skin

EDITORIAL UPDATE AS OF 3/23/13 AT 11:51PM: IF YOU'RE READING THIS POST, YOU SHOULD READ MY MOST RECENT POST, "YOU KNOW." JUST SO, UM, YOU KNOW. WHICH YOU WILL IF YOU READ THAT POST.

It's up! Alien Body Suit: Under Her Skin is now for sale for $9.95 on the TG Comics website. It's my second story to be illustrated and published there, but the first to be a Premium. In fact, it's the first premium illustrated story to be put up for sale on that website. I'm excited and a little scared to see how it will be received. If it doesn't do well for Femur - the webmaster, publisher and all around guru at TG Comics - it may close a door for other authors. I hope that doesn't happen.

TG Comics is virtually unique on the Internet, and that is a damn hard thing to do. I don't think the average visitor to the site really gets how much time, effort and money Femur spends on the site. The process of getting my story published there has given me a glimpse behind that curtain.

I think everybody knows the site is Femur's love song to the genre. I don't think everybody gets the depth of that commitment. The TG fiction community owes him a huge Thank You. Like Mindy Rich with Fictionmania (for stories), or Mako and Ray with the now defunct "Siren Song" website (for video), Femur's TG Comics website is the gold standard for sequential and illustrated TG fiction. I could not be more proud to have my work for sale there.

On a less profound, more whimsical note, can you see now why I am so coy about titles? If I had told people that ABS stood for Alien Body Suit, the content and direction of the story would have been too obvious, to the point of being a spoiler. Clearly the sequels - ABS:IM and ABS:WLW - are stories in the Alien Body Suit trilogy. (As a side note, it's "body suit" and not "bodysuit" due specifically to how the device is first seen / precieved in the story. You can read that part of the story for free in the preview that's up at TG Comics.) Those titles are guess-able if you know my writing well enough. Even so, I don't like to show my cards until I lay down my hand. Like the plot of those sequels ... well, read and see.

But start by reading Alien Body Suit: Under Her Skin. The test readers all loved it. I think you will too.

The End Is In Sight

I have a tentative release date!!! That date is this Tuesday, 3/19/13. If everything goes as planned, I'll be able to reveal the full title of ABS:UHS, which will tell a lot about the nature of the story itself. Then I can also talk more openly about the planned sequels: ABS:IM and ABS:WLW. Obviously, the "ABS" part of those titles will be clear to all after Tuesday's release.

If anyone is following this blog, I have to confess that I'm very excited and hopeful for this project. I hope it leads to good things for both myself and my publisher. They are taking a very big risk on this project. I want it to succeed. If it does, I'm hoping that it opens up possibilities for other authors of TG fiction.

... And Closer

I got ABS:UHS back from my publisher with the edits applied last night. VERY close now to being done, with publication not far behind. At least, that was the impression I got from the E-mail I received. I'm 110 pages into my final pass through the story out of approximately 225 pages including illustrations. (Illustrations have been done since early summer of 2011.) The remaining revisions are few and minor ("they" instead of "the," some discrepancies between illustrations and captions and so forth). I should be done tonight, with the rest of the work in my publisher's hands.

This will be the first major story I've put out that wasn't with Reluctant Press. I was so close to self-publishing. I was ready to take that on, but with so little money of my own to invest in illustrations, the offer from this publisher to do 100+ illustrations just kind of blew me away. At the time, I thought my chain was getting yanked, but it was a serious offer. And the quality? Light years beyond the illustrations I have had coupled with my work before this. Now 3 1/2 years later, it's coming out. "I can't wait to share this with you," well, those words just don't seem adequate to express how I feel.

I'm getting nervous. Scared, even. I know some people are going to hate it and dump on me. There's always a few people that seem to enjoy going negative. I hope there are more that love it. And buy it. I'm pretty certain that a bad financial outcome will close the door on anyone that wants to follow in my footsteps. I think that would crush my spirits.

I can't stop rereading this story, though. I don't seem to get tired of it. I hope other people feel the same way.

Receeding Horizon

My publisher for ABS:UHS has given me feedback from three test readers. Those people know who they are, so I won't embarrass them by naming them here. The feedback has been very positive. In my opinion, even the negative feedback was because the reader was so invested in the characters, the outcome bummed them out. (I think the term "a real downer" was used.) The two others had really nice, wonderful things to say, so it looks like we're one step closer to publication.

Me? I'm past ready for it. I've been procrastinating on starting the sequels. Seeing ABS:UHS up online will, I think, give me the nudge I need so at least start writing the 2nd and 3rd parts. Scary to think that will put the story as a whole around 300 pages. (With illustrations, that might make it 600+ pages.) Wow. That's dangerously close to novel length. I'm running out of excuses to write an actual novel.

Speaking of procrastinating, I've been working on MCN. I'm past the transformation scene and into the guts of the story, which is all about dealing with the fallout for both of the main characters. Let's hope I can keep it up. Often, I find it difficult to write once I'm past that point. I lose interest and the story languishes half-formed on my hard drive.

In other procrastination news, I've finished another story that I haven't mentioned here yet. It's short and it's very sexual, so I may put it up on Fictionmania or TG Storytime soon. Still not sure on that one. Like the ABS series, this one has more than one part. They're short enough that I may put off releasing them until at least the next one is done. As always, I don't like spoilers, but I will say that this series deals a little bit with a Man Into Object theme, which is new for me. Fun, but new.

Well, at least the object is new. I did make my script for The Bra public over at the TG Comics forum.

ABS:UHS Update

I got an E-mail from my publisher with the final version of the cover for my upcoming story, ABS:UHS. The illustration - a fun cover that includes all of the main characters in a non-story setting - looks fantastic! I can't wait to share it with the world. This one has been a lot longer coming than I have wanted. Still, I think the wait is going to be worth it. If for no other reason, having something I wrote illustrated with nearly 100 beautiful images by an artist that is known and respected in the community is going to be worth the price of admission.

Yes, you read that right; this one won't be free. Even so, I think that those that choose to pay for the story won't be disappointed. I don't have a price point yet, but I would guess it will be well under the price of my Reluctant Press stories, yet having far more value. I can't rave about the illustrations enough. Some of them will be worth the price of admission all by themselves. Thank you, my artist friend! You know who you are. ;-)

Another One Bites The Dust

I finished another story. Now what?

I had a week off this last week. As I often do, I used some of my extra free time to write. I banged out 28 pages to finish it off. Writing at an average pace of about one (1) page an hour or less, that's more than three days of full time work. The time flew by. I could do it again easily, because it's just too much fun to write. "T_ P_ F_" (TPF, from now on) is now sitting on my hard drive, needing revision, waiting to be polished to a gleaming shine before being published at ... I don't know where.

Like my other unpublished work (ABS:UHS), I will not be submitting it to Reluctant Press. I think I've outgrown them. It's less about them than it is about me wanting more control over the content I create. If I write something and it bombs, I want to know. If it succeeds wildly, I want to know. Most of all, I want to succeed or fail based on the merits (or lack thereof) of my own work.

To that end, ABS:UHS has been extensively illustrated (paid for by a third party) and will be published at some point in the future at a website that won't suprise anyone that follows my writing. As great as that is, I'm looking to publish independently for my next story. I have Lulu and Createspace (Amazon) accounts set up, but I'm not sure which I'll use. I'm leaning towards Createspace, as I think it will get more exposure if I use them. A friend of mine uses them with great personal success.

For now, I've got a several stories with finished outlines and enough pages to know I want to finish them. (C_ O_ T_, MAU:S_ E_ , T_ B_, TotTC:M_ V_) Before I worry about publishing, that's were I'm going to put my focus, starting with COT. Besides, TPF makes reference to a licensed character that needs to be edited out if I'm going to sell it.

Project Progress

My sometimes mentioned project - ABS - has a new name, and so it gains a new moniker ... ABS:UHS. What does that gobbledy-gook stand for? That's under wraps for now.

Where to start? I guess from the beginning.

ABS has been done for a while now. Not long after I finished writing it, I finished two additional stories, F_D, which does not stand for what you think it does and MM. I'm also a few pages from finishing a fourth story, and I have an outline done for a fifth story. Outlines, by the way, are Sara Speak for, "Oh yeah, that one's getting finished for sure."

My original intention was to publish with Reluctant Press. But ... I think I've mentioned before that I'm no longer as taken with them as I once was. I then decided to self-publish through Lulu. As mentioned back in 2009, that did not go well. Around the same time, I was looking for an illustrator to do a cover image and a few interior illustrations to accompany the story.

What came next suprised me a lot: an offer to illustrate my story, to publish me, and like Lulu, to pay me per sale ... with a 50-50 split. I jumped at the offer. Also, MM - a story I had considered giving away at Fictionmania - would also get illustrated and given away as a way to drum up sales for ABS. I was really excited by the prospects, and kind of sat back and did nothing for a good long while.

Fast forward about a year and a half and here I am, still waiting. As if what had happened before wasn't great enough, the new publisher contacted me and apologized for the delay, and offered to hire an illustrator out of their own pocket to do illustrations. But, instead of the 3 - 4 that I had been thinking of originally, they want to do 100.

Yes, you read that right: 100.

So again, I jumped at the offer. An artist agreed to do the work. E-mails were traded. Illustrations were described. Baseline images were agreed upon. In genereal, progress has been made. I've even started to see actual illustrations. Right now, I'm frustrated with the process, but I've got to say, it's good to be making forward progress with my art, even if most of the work is being done for me by another person at this point.