... 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.

Closer

After spending a month and a half putting off doing revisions for ABS:UHS, I finished final revisions and passed it back to my new publisher for the edits to be applied. I'm now waiting on them to finish so that I can finally talk about this project. I'm looking forward to that!

Excited to share this illustrated story (100+ illustrations!) with the world. Check here for details and updates.

I'm A Big Tease

Finished my first first draft of a new story. Let's call it HG. As always, I hate sharing titles and synopsises before I publish. This one joins TPF as a story that's finished but not published. As for ABS:UHS, I really need to get busy with final revisions so the darn thing can get published.

Author Down

I'm in the hospital ... again. For those that care about the details, I have blood clots in my lungs. I went to the ER on an unrelated matter and they found this instead. For the time being, they're talking about me being able to go home in a "few days." Ah, the wonders of specificity.

So much for my plans for the weekend. OTOH, with so much free time opening up, maybe some time to write? We'll see how I feel.

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.

Avocation

I'm at my day job (customer service for the local cable company) and wishing I was at home writing. I can't write at work. 1) My employer wants me to focus on the customers, which is as it should be. 2) If I break that rule and write anyway, it goes at something like a sentence or two an hour. 3) The end result suffers from being written in micro-chunks.

The story that I'm currently (trying) to work on  - let's call it MNC - is on the verge of becoming a much longer work. It started as a TG idea, but I had an idea to make it a more serious work. It will still have those TG elements, but it may become the launching point for the story, rather than the reason for its existence.

Untitled

I don't think I've mentioned this before, so let me tell you now: I hate ... HATE ... using titles that other authors have used before. So, I have a story that I play with now and again that has a working title of "Busted!"

Not anymore, though. I just did a Fictionmania search and discovered a bunch of stories that use some variant of "Busted" as a title. Now I have to search my brain and come up with a new title that's clever  enough to suit me and still matches the narrative of the story.

Damn it.