Nothing Much New

Still writing intermittently on Chapter 3 of Homecoming?, and lately I've been feeling tidal forces pulling me back to Schroedinger's Cat, but so far I've been able to resist.

I decided to put The Undine Chronicles up on SOL, and both Redemption and Reconciliation are there now.  I've gotten some recent positive feedback on them, and that cheers me up.

Sorry I haven't been more diligent about writing, but Real Life has a way of interfering with plans. Maybe I'll get blessed simultaneously with both inspiration and time to write, soon.

QM

New tactics

I actually am writing some new stuff these days - remember I said that I had to work on Homecoming? It's slow going though.  

Anyway, I finally took note of the fact that some  of my own favorite authors are reposting their existing works on SOL, and I decided, What the hey! I might as well check out the possibilities for expanding my readership there.  

I have to tell you, the results were pretty overwhelming.

I reposted the Breakdown in its entirety, over the course of five days, and the volume of  feedback I've gotten from SOL readers has eclipsed the total feedback I've ever received on my stories on any other site!  That's pretty amazing.  I think the experimental results are pretty definitive.

Anyway, since Homecoming? isn't yet finished, I can't post it in its entirety.  Inasmuch as I've already promised readers on other sites that I'll work on it, I'll continue to post it, chapter-wise, until it's finished.  Then I'll start to work on Shroedinger's Cat again.

In the meantime, if you graze through multiple stories sites looking for entertainment, don't be surprised if you see more of my stories popping up on SOL.  I have a few short ones that might be appreciated there.  

All that is not to say that there weren't a few SOL readers who were unhappy with the ending, because some things were left hanging at the end of Breakdown.   My response is:  I clearly created it a series story.  What is it about series or serial stories you don't understand?  By definition, these stories have to leave something hanging in order to provide continuity.  They are not just companion stories in the same universe; rather they are episodes of the same saga.

Enough lecturing for now.  Instead let me issue my thanks to all of the readers who have responded with feedback.  I hope you continue to enjoy my works - and I hope the occasional spelling or grammatical errors don't spoil the stories for you.

Happy Thanksgiving.

QM

Keeping Promises - completed

Okay (breathing hard), it's done.  Chapter 3 was submitted to my ASSTR web site, last night, and to SOL this morning. Hopefully it'll show up when those sites refresh, today. I also posted the story in its entirety to my ASSTR FTP site, as a PDF document.  I hope you enjoy it.

I'm going to take a vacation from the Swarmiverse, and try once again to finish some of my ongoing, stalled-out stories, notably Schroedinger's Cat and Homecoming?.  They'll be slow going though, because I have to re-familiarize myself with the story lines - it has been that long.  IF I ever get them finished, I'll probably take a long vacation from writing.

Yah, yah, I know.  Some of you think I've already taken too much time off.  Let me remind you once agina, that this is a hobby for me.  I only do it when I can't find enough quality reading to occupy my time, and the only currency in which I get paid for it, is your gratitude.  Not that I don't appreciate that, but it doesn't help squeeze blood out of the turnip!  

Another author that I follow said it best: "Why don't you try it for a while, and see how long it takes for you to burn out?"

It isn't easy to create entertaining, believeable, logically consistent fiction, populated with sympathetic, and hopefully, well-developed characters, out of nothing but your imagination.

Anyway, for those who like the story, thanks for your appreciation. For those who offer constructive criticism, thanks for trying to make me a better author. For those who can only engage in name-calling, or bitch about characters, situations, and outcomes that they find disturbing... well, you get what you paid for.

QM

Keeping Promises

... is the title of the new story that I posted tonight.  It is set in the Swarmiverse, and further investigates the coping mechanisms of the cosca, as it adapts to life away from the familiar trappings of Earth.  The blurbs read:  "Heroes die young.  Life goes on.  The rest of us have to stand up and be counted.  Sometimes keeping promises costs more than you think it will."

I'm pretty sure the final edits will be completed sooner than I expected.  If it happens that way, I may post a chapter each day for the rest of the weekend.

QM

New Swarm Story coming this weekend

I just finished a new story set in the Swarmiverse. This one deals with the aftermath of the death of one of the cosca's pilots. It's about 15K words in 3 chapters, and is now under editorial review.

I don't like the working title, so I'm not going to use it here, but I hope to choose a final title and post the first chapter by this weekend. I know, I said I won't post unfinished stories anymore, but this one is finished. I'm just not going to post it all at once. I will post the chapters as I get them out of final edits.

Galen Rides again...

For those of you who like him, our wandering technical support Dom, Galen Cuvier, is the news today. I just posted Chapter 2 of Homecoming? I know it's been a long time, but I really am trying to finish this tale. When it is done, I promise to never, never, never post any part of a story until the whole thing is finished. I'm kind of stuck with this one, and a couple of others, though. Not much action or sex in this chapter. Think of it as a bridge between the more exciting parts.

Left Behind - a (short) Swarm pickup parody

Back in January or so, of this year, when many of us were in the winter doldrums, one of the more enthusiastic Swarm authors got the idea that we should have a contest, the theme of which to find out who could write the best pickup story. There was a twist, though, and it was that the story had to involve one or more of the actual Swam authors. This was my entry. It didn't win, of course, and it sat around languishing ever since, but I ran across it today and thought some of you might enjoy it. Keep in mind that it is a parody, and not part of the Swarm canon!

The Priests' Wedding

Waltzing Melissa honours me by setting her latest effort in my own little corner of the Swarmiverse. Her new story is called The Priests' wedding, and picks up the future history of the cosca somewhat after the events described in Changing Priorities.

As you might surmise from the title, it describes the toils and tribulations of the priests sent to minister to the cosca, as they try to implement the Pope's directives concerning marriage and the priesthood. Melissa has assembled a wonderful, sexy tale full of humor, angst, love and purpose. Please enjoy it as much as I did!

New Chapter

Well, as promised, Schroedinger's Cat, Chapter 7 is finished and posted, and will be available with the next ASSTR update. No real suspense, I think, but some interesting personal stuff going on, and a little local color. Getting real close to the party now.

Homecoming Chapter 2 is underway again, and I hope to finish it soon.

I may or may not get back to writing in the Swarm universe soon, but another author has indicated some interest in writing a new tale involving the cosca of Family Values and Changing Priorities fame. I've seen some of the preliminary work, and what I've seen looks pretty good.

I'm not sure how much longer I'll continue writing for the Web. Writing, for me, is a way to fill the time between stories by my favorite authors. When they go on hiatus, that's when I write. When I do write, there are usually several stories vying for my time. One thing is for sure: Once Schroedinger and Homecoming are complete, I'm only going to post new stories that I've completely finished. Chapter-wise posting aggravates readers (even when they want it!), and causes me too many headaches in maintaining story flow and logical consistency.

That's all I have for right now. Have a great day.

Status

Currently working on Chapter 7 of Schroedinger's Cat. If all goes well, I may have it posted by the first of November. If not... well.... Anyway, next up after that is Chapter 2 of Homecoming?, and it's got a lot further to go before it's ready for prime time - less than a thousand words written, so far.

No, there won't be any more Swarm stories from me for awhile, at least not until I've caught up a little more on my backlog. There are a bunch of other Swarm authors, though, and judging by the discussions going on, a lot of exciting new stories coming down the pike! Be sure to check frequently on the Thinking Horndog's New Swarm Stories page.. or, you could do like I do, sometimes, and haunt SOL...

Changing Priorities

I've posted a new Swarm story. It's called Changing Priorities, and it develops on the concept of "the Godfather in Outer Space," that was exposed in Family Values. It's on both ASSTR and SOL.

I'm going to take a vacation from the Swarm for awhile. My other writing projects have fallen 'way behind, and I need to move them along a little faster, so no more new Swarm stories from me for awhile. There are lots of great writers doing stories for the Swarm universe, though, so if you haven't checked them out, this would be a great time to do so!

Another stories site

Yielding to pressure from my new friend, deGaffer, I have established an author account at Storiesonline.net (SOL), and today I posted Family Values to the Swarm Cycle universe there. In addition, any future Swarm stories that I may write will be posted there as well.

Of course, any stories I write, including any in the Swarm universe, will continue to be posted on my main stories site at ASSTR. SOL is just another venue. It may also have a positive side for a couple of readers who have mentioned that my main site is hard on their eyes. Although SOL allows some minor customization, I have no intention to try for anything striking at the moment. I will also continue to convert stories, as time permits, to PDF format for both FTP and web download.

The Panty Raid

I just finished a new short story, only 3 chapters and just short of 15K words. I posted it on ASSTR today, and I'll probably post it on Literotica (if it'll allow it) tomorrow.

It's called The Panty Raid, and its been percolating in my head for quite awhile. The idea to write this story has been bothering me for about a year now. I didn't really want to do it, but it wouldn't let me go, so here it is. It's a pretty dark tale, and parts of it kind of make me mad.

The event that inspired the story is over 30 years old, and was actually not very exciting. I had heard or read somewhere, that some guys at my old alma mater had pulled off a panty raid, and mentioned it in passing to a female friend. I recall being amused about it. She quickly disabused me of the notion that it was just good clean fun. With prejudice. Seems some friends of hers were victims of some pretty rough treatment during a college panty raid, and that the rumor mill spoke of multiple sexual assaults, as well.

Family Values

Some of you may remember that I've been working on a short story for the Swarm Cycle, which is a set of stories in a collaborative universe created by the Thinking Horndog. Well, I finally finished it, and it's called Family Values. I posted it last night on ASSTR, and I may or may not post it on EWP or Literotica.

It's shorter than I thought it would be, only three chapters (about 12K-13K words), and the character development was somewhat of a surprise to me. Let me know if you like it.

It's FICTION, dumbass!

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An FTP experiment...

In the two or three years I've been posting to ASSTR, I've never used the FTP site. The reason is simple: I wanted more control over the stories than uploading plain text files, or Word documents, to an ftp site would allow. I could have solved the problem a long time ago, except that I always felt that the cost of Adobe Acrobat (full version) was much too high to justify buying it for that purpose.

Recently though, I had the good fortune to come across the PDF995 software suite, from a company called Software995. The suite contains utliities for creating, signing, securing, and encrypting PDF documents, and all of the elements are available via free download. The freeware version has the usual annoying popups, but hey, it's free! If you dislike the popups enough, you can get rid of them for less than twenty bucks.

I've decided to use the PDF995 suite to test the demand for ftp downloads. I've created a PDF document will all four chapters, plus the epilogue, for Breakdown, and before I go to bed tonight, it'll be posted on my ftp site. I'll watch the download statistics to see if there's enough demand to continue it with the other stories.

New Galen Story!

I've finally finished the first chapter of the long-awaited sequel to Breakdown - a new Galen Cuvier story, titled Homecoming? I posted the new chapter today.

The addition of the new story caused a need to reorganize several parts of my ASSTR website (naturally), so today's updates are more massive than just posting a story. Galen has gone from being the main character in a single story (Breakdown), to being the central figure in a universe of stories (The Life and Times of Galen Cuvier). And yes, it's likely that there will be more Galen stories after Homecoming? is finished.

Phantom updates on ASSTR

Sorry about that. Nothing for it though. Changing the links to my blog, on my story pages is probably going to cause several of these.

Moving day is over!

Well, hello again.

I've finally gotten fed up with the restrictions that MySpace placed on my blogging. I write stories. Some, perhaps most, of my stories describe sex acts in more or less explicit terms. This means that many, perhaps most, hosting services classify my stories as erotic stories.

For me, the only reason to have a blog in the first place, is so that I can let my readers know about the status of my stories. That includes not only which stories are actively being worked upon, and where they are in the creative process, but also live links to websites where they can be found, like ASSTR, Electronic Wilderness Publishing, and Literotica. Simple things like that. Every time I tried to make these links available in my blog on MySpace, the censors redirected them to the MySpace login page. Not very helpful.

Anyway, I've now migrated the blogs that I'd previously posted on MySpace to this site, and I'll be changing the links on my story pages to point here for my blogs.

For my readers: thanks for your patience. Please bear with me a little longer. For everyone else: read my stuff! You can get to it at the above links.

QM

This and that

For those who may not have reason to know, I consolidated and refined the material previously presented in the Clarifications blog set, and posted it to Literotica as an essay. At last check, over a period of not quite two days' exposure, 1400+ people have read it, and reaction (as measured by voting) is slightly more positive than 75%.

Only two readers, as of this moment, actually took time to comment on it in writing: one as instant feedback, which everyone can see (at the end of the essay), and the other as an email critique. The instant feedback was short and complimentary, while the email was a little longer and somewhat more critical.

In my critic's view, I didn't stress safety enough in the essay, and that may be true. I thought I had, but perhaps I should have said more, or said it more emphatically. As I responded to my critic, I don't think it possible to be too concerned about safety, especially if you are engaged in activities that have the potential to maim or kill people.

At any rate, I don't think I'll make any changes just yet, in case there are more people out there who might have pertinent comments to make. In a few more days, after everyone who might wish to do so has had an opportunity to comment, I'll consider what changes to make, and probably issue an update.

Work proceeds slowly on the three stories I am actively writing, and I have so far successfully resisted putting more work in on the fourth. I hope to have the first chapter of Homecoming? ready to post soon. When I do, it will go up first on Literotica, then on EWP and ASSTR.

As I said previously, the Swarm Cycle story I'm working on won't be posted until it has been completed and blessed by the creator of the Swarm Universe.

I only just had a breakthrough on Chapter 7 of Schroedinger, so it'll be a little while before it's ready to post.

QM