Mid-day Update

All six chapters of Blackhawk now have edits submitted at Lit.  I’m not going to post Casting Off Convention there until those edits go live.

Casting has been put in the queue at Storiesonline, and probably will go up there before the day is out.

Likewise, Casting is now available here on the Short Stories page.  If you read it here, vote for it at Lit/S.O. when it comes out at those places, please!  Feel free to cross over and vote at both places 😉

Big, big thanks to RoustWriter for his insightful suggestions and keen eye in editing this story.  I think all my readers will appreciate the increased level of quality he is bringing to my tales!

Just send a second draft of Casting to the editor, and made a few adjustments to the first chapter as well, based upon his suggestions.  It seems I have another common annoying quirk I hadn’t detected yet, constantly having everyone “begin” or “start” to do something.  When I got back the first draft with that notation, I could almost hear Dark Helmet from Spaceballs saying, “Why are you preparing?  You’re always preparing!  Just go!”

It’s in his hands for review now, and should be back before too long.  The third chapter is over half done, and probably will be finished by the end of the day.  Of course, my track record for those predictions isn’t exactly perfect *laugh*

The naughty bits of this one are going to be quite detailed, taking up the largest part of the third chapter.  I’m writing the scene from a more female-centric perspective, leading up to the overt sexual contact with a lot more touching, kissing, etc.  Considering it goes 2/3 into the story with barely a bit of heat, I don’t think the pumped up sex scene will hurt anything, and in fact is almost necessary in my vision.  There’s a lot I want to convey in that scene too, so it all works out.  I’m planning to put an informational in there telling everyone to “skip ahead to track three if you’re just looking for sex” when I post it, so that the stroke seekers will be able to find what they’re after without wading through all that ridiculous scene setting, character establishing stuff 😉

The new version of Kampar is up at Lit, so I need to get the first couple of chapters of Blackhawk reposted to Lit now.

Converted both Arts tales, Prelude, and Thakkor over to webpages here instead of linked .txt files.  I’ll convert all the Blackhawks soon as well.  Preparation for Casting, which will be presented here in a webpage format, the new norm for my short stories.

Back to work!

Just finished the first chapter of that Christi tale last night.  It is currently titled “Casting Off Convention”.  It will be submitted to s.o. as two (maybe three) chapters of 30k or less, and posted here as a single file story.  I’m still deciding whether I’m going to post it to Lit or not, leaning towards yes.

I’ve put up an editor request at s.o. and picked up some responses, sending out the chapter to those who replied.  With a wee spot of luck, I might just have a regular editor soon.

Dropped a few more tidbits into the s.o. portal, and I’m going to make the maps of Egoria at some point soon, mainly for the portal, but Egoria will play heavily into Book II of Danica as well.

I’ve also written a few paragraphs on both the new Arilee tale and Danica 19.  I’m doing more brainstorming on those than actual writing at the moment.  The Danica chapter is just too critical to the storyline to jump into without a little planning beforehand, and as popular as Ari is, I certainly don’t want to mess that one up!

Back to writing.

All the currently edited tales at Lit have gone live, so I guess it’s time to put a couple more in the hands of the editors *laugh*  I’m going to put Arts Ardane up tonight, and as soon as I get back the copy from the proofreader, Kampar’s Wand.  I’ve rewritten KW a little, bringing out Darmok a little more and cleaning up a few things.  As soon as I get it back, I’ll post the new copy here, submit it to storiesonline, and send the edit off to Lit.  After those go live at Lit, I’m going to mess them up good by posting edits to the entire Blackhawk Series at Lit *laugh*  Lots of good feedback from storiesonline, and what I’ve learned on my own, will improve those stories at Lit, I’m sure.  Mostly grammar and punctuation, only very minor story changes, and those just clarify some points that S.O. readers didn’t find well-defined enough.

I have two tales burning in my head that absolutely need to get down on paper, or at least started, before I’m going to be able to clear my head enough to start on Danica 19.  Danica is going to be twenty chapters, so naturally this chapter is vitally important.  I want to make sure I have everything flowing properly before I start it.

The two tales are short, and focus on characters from Blackhawk Hall.  The first is Christi’s first time lesbian experience, which she mentions in Blackhawk.  The second is a romantic tale from Arilee’s past.  Where they will end up being posted is a question that is still up in the air.  They could go everywhere.  They could be S.O. exclusives.  They could be website exclusives.  It all depends on what I think of them when they’re done.  One thing I know for sure is that they won’t be Lit exclusive.  Blackhawk is my core at S.O. and thus any stories with those characters is going to get preference toward there.

That being said, I probably will get to typing on Danica 19, at least some of the scenes leading up to the important parts.  I don’t want to leave it just sitting idle.  I need to put something down so that the file is active and moving.

I just added a storiesonline portal page to the website, to help explain the Danicacentric nature of the website for them, since she is far from a central character in the stories there.  New pic/bg of Baileykins, if you’re from elsewhere and want to take a peek: SO Portal

Still scoring well at S.O.  Picked up a few new votes on tales at Lit.  Still doing well on the scoreboards at Lit as well.  Thanks to everyone who reads, votes, and comments on my tales at both places, you’re my bread and butter!

June news is off to the cache

Sorry to those waiting, but the muse simply hasn’t been upon me.  Every time I sat down to write, there were just too many distractions, too many irritations, too little sleep, or something holding me back.  Nothing was coming to life, so rather than write something I wouldn’t be happy with and have to revise, I simply took a break.  I’m back to writing now, and I took Wednesday off next week as well.

I just posted my first story at Storiesonline, Home by the Sea.  I’ll probably post Blackhawk there as well.  There is a chance that I may post some stories exclusively there, due to the differing submission rules.  The link to my Author page is on the front page, so check it out and drop me a vote if you’d like =)

I also just added a section called Dear Anonymous: that answers some questions and comments posted to my PCs that I can’t answer directly because they’re anonymous.  You get a new background and pic of my Baileykins in the process.

Still working on that hook for that Arilee tale, we’ll see where it goes.  Edited versions of Home and Ebon should go live at Lit soon.  The version of Home that is posted already on SO is the edited version submitted to Lit.

Seven stories in the overall toplist first page, with sixteen total making that list.  Every story but one is in the SF/F toplist, with eleven on the first page.  Home is still holding steady in the top ten of the EH toplist.  Thanks to all the readers, and I hope my position in the rankings brings me even more, because I love the feedback.