Tag Archives: mindblind

Snowy Brainstorm

I just had a major brainstorm 🙂

I was mulling over something else when the sweetest, most perfect idea for a brand new Laresa story popped into my head.  Bonus:  It’s Christmas themed.

It’s most likely going to immediately follow “Genie Valentine” in the timeline, though like most of the stories early in the Laresa tales, it will be self-contained and can easily be read outside the series.

It’s so perfect I can’t stop grinning.

So, keep your eyes open for “His Christmas Wish” in the Winter Holiday Contest at Literotica!  ( and at SOL not long after )

I’ll most likely hold on to this one until about the 29th of November, so it will be closer to the Christmas season and after Thanksgiving, but still within the contest dates.

In addition, the Thanksgiving story as Les ( “Center Piece” ) is moving.

I also finally have an opening scene that’s making me smile for the next chapter of SOTM.  So much of the next chapter has been written in my head for a while, because it was originally planned for the last chapter I released.  It was just getting an opening scene and a few other things that were holding me back.

I’m also mulling over Lowborn, trying to get this final, critical scene to work the way I want it to.  Some previous brainstorms that I’ve mentioned have pushed me closer, but there’s still just some critical interaction that I have to get exactly right to make the whole story come together.

I was right in the last post.  I do have some momentum going again 🙂  My muse, at the very least, is on duty and whispering in my ear regularly.

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Hmmm…

The more I muse over restarting “Flesh”, the more I keep running into the same problems as before.

If I go one way, it’s not horror enough.  Considering there isn’t a likeable protagonist in the entire cast, having it in horror is pretty much a requirement.  If I go another, it’s creepy, and not in a way I think will be received well.  If I go another, it’s too much like “Harvest of Blood” and feels like a rehash to me.

I may think about it, but I think I’m going to shelve the idea.

On the other hand — out of the blue — I had the spark of an idea for a new Laresa story set in a Halloween theme.

We’ll see what happens as the idea congeals.

There are a few lines of dialogue that are holding me back on Lowborn.  Mind you, they’re critical lines.  They’re the revelation of something that starts in chapter one, and deeply woven into the whole story.  This little exchange has to be absolutely perfect, or the story simply isn’t going to have the impact it should.

I’m mulling it over, experimenting with a few versions on “paper” and trying to tweak it to where it needs to be.

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Bit of sputtering

Fighting some slow motivation.  I’m inching along on Lowborn, but not much else getting done.  Just been feeling lousy for the last few days.  Don’t have a cold or anything, but just weak and generally “Bhah”.

Going to try to get it together, because I’d really like to finish Lowborn, get a decent chunk of SOTM 19 done, and then get the new version of “Flesh” going so I can make it for the Halloween contest at Lit.

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Luck with me

Attracted the attention of one of the gurus on the support forum, and I have two different solutions.  Both will take care of the problem, but one is more elegant and has long-term benefits, including teaching me a new way to manipulate the base code of the underlying software without actually modifying it — making upgrades simple and painless.

There’s a learning curve, but that’s the way I’m going.  It will take more time in the now, but save a lot more in the future.

In addition, I got some writing done on Lowborn last night and this morning.  Brought it back up to 1500 words after the backspace, and I’m back to where the final action of the story takes place again.  Should encourage me to get back at it this evening after I get home from work.

Had a flash of inspiration that I love as well.  It has ties to the first chapter of the story, the title, and even makes a plot point easier to deliver.

Tickled with that, and irritation at the end of the story not working out the way I wanted was what had slowed me down writing, so that most certainly will give me a boost.

Okay, got to get ready for work.  I’m in major muse mode, so I’ll be taking advantage of that on the drive and during the first tedious couple of hours of work, where I don’t have much to do physically or mentally.  Most of my job is crammed into the middle of the day — fast and furious.

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Work on shorts

Waiting for the young one to chill out a little.  Think I may finally have the right mix to finish the last chapter of Lowborn.  I’ll see when I start writing it if it feels as good putting it on paper as it feels in my head right now.

Meanwhile, I’ve done some more work on the short stories page.  The main page now loads all the stories from the database and displays everything as expected.

The individual story pages now load the cover and title from the database, and merge in the text of the story stored elsewhere for easy editing, if I miss something during the editing process.

Comments load from the database and display as expected at the bottom of each story.  That includes only showing the “click to comment” portion if there aren’t any reader comments on a story yet.

What’s left to do:

Code the “Make a Comment” page.

Add a “latest three” header to the top of the main short story page for easy location of new additions once the list starts growing.

What’s left to do behind the scenes:

Code a utility to add new stories to the shorts database.

Code a utility to moderate comments on the short stories.

Update my story database utility to account for the new shorts page.

Update the “Latest Releases” utility to do the same.

Update both “My Work” and “Latest Releases” to display the short story links to the public.

And, of course, get some more short stories done 🙂

If I finish coding before I finish all three of the new Devan shorts, I’ll go ahead and launch the section with the ones I’ve completed ( one done already, just needs to go through my editor )

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