"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 ...

HEAD GAMES: My first eBook for sale at Amazon.

I have my first eBook up for sale at Amazon. The name of the book is "Head Games." I just put this up yesterday afternoon and it already has some sales before I've even had a chance to promote it at TG Comics, here or on my Twitter account, which really shocked me. I'm very excited to begin self-publishing and hope to have some more of my finished stories up for sale soon.

Story Description:

Five friends abducted by aliens try to escape captivity with the assistance of two less than helpful strangers. With their heads separated from their bodies and attached to strange machinery, an unexpected malfunction starts a chain of events that leads to their escape. But at what price? Not all of them will live, while some that do will find their lives transformed forever.

(Trangender Erotic Fiction, Approximately 42,300 words)

As is normal with Amazon, the first 10% of the book is up for preview so you can read some of the story for free. Go check it out!

Graphic Designs

In case you haven't figured this out yet, I'm an author. Words are my medium of choice. Which is what makes the fact that I have seven completed but unpublished works a little frustrating. I'm working towards publishing two of the longer works on Amazon. The problem of the moment is cover art.

I've been playing around on Shutterstock trying to find photos I can use for the story I want to publish, HG. At the same time, I finished up a Christmas story that I'd like to give away at TG Comics, but to do that, I have to find art. I also have another longer story, BaM, that's close to completion that will also need cover art. I was so desperate that I opened DAZ 3D for the first time in months to toy with the option of creating my own art work. Then I remembered: my content library is really, really shallow. Making my own images isn't really option without investing a lot of time and some money that I don't really have. Far easier if I could find photos I can use at Shutterstock.

Just ... really frustrated at the moment.

"Busted!"

Oh, Femur. I know that great minds think alike and all, but I'm sad to lose the title for one of my favorite story concepts.

Femur's "Busted" (no exclamation point) is a great Premium offering from TG Comics. Femur did the story and Gluebubble did the art. It has a great future-retro feel that makes for a fun read. While I wouldn't call the ending a "twist," it certainly was unexpected. All in all a great read and well worth the money to purchase access, in my opinion.

But ... that was MY title!!!  ;-)  I have had a story idea that's partially written for a number of years with this title. How long? I did a Fictionmania search before opening the file on my hard drive, amazed that no one had written a story with that title yet. Now there are two. The oldest of them is from 2003. That should give you an idea of how long some of my ideas take to bring to fruition.

If you think I'm going to just delete the story, don't despair. While I may have to rename this story, I like it too much to just throw it out. It will see the light of day eventually.

But do you see now why I'm so tight lipped about my story names?!? It's way too easy to lose a good idea to another author. It's not like you can own a name either. Sometimes the best way to keep something from being used by other people is to keep it secret. And the best way to keep a secret? Simple: DON'T TELL ANYONE.

TG Forums Shut Down January 2014

Good for you, Femur! (Yes, I know it's supposed to be a lowercase "f.") You rock! I doubt shutting the forum down will teach the offending parties any manners, but it still made me sit up and cheer. You seldom use your power, but when you do, it is always on the side of basic manners and decency. That's a rare thing in these days of "shoot from the lip" (lip, not hip) blogging where snark is confused for quality.

Job well done!

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.

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.

It's Up!!!

"The Milkman," my newest story is up. You can find it over at TG Comics. As I've mentioned here before, I'm pretty fond of this one. The biggest part of that for me is because I think it's the tightest piece of writing I've put out yet. Femur gave me some feedback on the ending. After some mild grumbling on my part, I capitulated and the story is far better than it was because of that. Here's a great big THANK YOU to femur!

Hint Hint

For those of you daring enough to read my blog, here's a scoop just for you!

If you head on over to TG Comics, the same update that includes the last chapters of Sturkwurk's "WTF?!?" has a promise of a new writer and a new "official" artist. Guess who the new writer is? That's right ... lil' ole me! I even know who the artist is, because I signed off on their selection. I wish I could say more, but I don't want to steal Femur's thunder. I will say this, though: I really excited to share this one with the world.

CBlack Chest Morph

This is a morph for a image sequence in CBlack's "Boys of Summer." The story comic can be found at TGComics.com.

You would not believe how much I've forgotten about the necessary format conversion steps to make a video like this! Either that, or I've gotten a lot more picky about quality, making me dissatisfied with previous efforts. I actually rendered this as an image sequence and built the source file frame by frame in Adobe Premiere Elements, as it was the only way I could get the file quality I wanted.

Midnight Oil

Not last night but the night before, Tommyknockers, Tommyknockers .... ha ha. No. What I was really going to say was that I got home from Oswego Harborfest at one in the morning and ended up writing until 4:30AM. I was very, very tired after that.

On an upside, ABS - the acronym I'm using in place of my current project's title - is done. More precisely, the added chapter / section I wanted to write to flesh it out is done. I think the new section makes the ending seem less abrupt.

Now to decide what to do with it. Reluctant Press? TG Comics? Self-publish? I can't decide.

As much as I would like to support RP, they seem to be doing well without my help. Femur has big plans for TG Comics and I would like to support that. On the other hand, a straight story doesn't really fit in at TG Comics. As for self-publishing, I worry that I won't do well at all. I suppose the only way to find out for sure will be to try.

Cruel, Cruel Irony

I was just doing a Google search to try and find an illustrator that would work with a TG theme. As a number of artists at TG Comics work on commission, the search I used was "TG comics illustrator hire."

The only relevant result was this blog!

I have, by the way, found someone that will work with me. His name is Ethan Young. At some point when my financial situation isn't quite so dire, I would like to work with him. Until then, the search goes on for an affordable illustration alternative.

Transformation Video

After posting my fan morph of Siproites sequence and putting a link in the TG Comics forum, I immediately got several wows and a request for more. Since I have a couple pieces gathering dust on my hard drive, I decided to upload them here. The first is a transformation video I did in DAZ Studio a while ago. The other is the first morph project I did.

First up, the transformation video:

Siproites Morph

After seeing some of the great transformation sequences done at TG Comics, I wanted to turn one by Siproites into morph. I've been sitting on the result since the beginning of February. Here it is!

(I know, I know ... the resolution isn't that great. I'm still looking for a way to get this online that doesn't involve YouTube.)