Blinked into the forum today and saw something I never thought I’d see.
May 2011 Reader’s Choice Award
Ch. 16 of Sisters of the Mists got first place in the May Reader’s Choice awards!
Thanks to everyone who read and voted! Finally will have a nice blue W on my page as Dark to go with the ones as Les.
I’m tickled, needless to say.
Hit a wall a while back and couldn’t concentrate on anything. It’s largely due to the steady increase in summer volume at work, making for longer hours, culminating in last week that was a horror show.
The hours aren’t likely to calm down much for a while, but I think I’m at least adjusted to it. After a long drought of not even wanting to open a document, I cracked open Beauty of the Wood today, cleaned up a few things I’d thought about during the hiatus ( even when I’m not writing, I’m generally thinking about the stories ) and moved forward.
This is a Nude Day story, and I’m hoping to finish it in time for the contest now. Bit of a tight deadline, but I’m going to try.
If nothing else, I have a solid start on an Earth Day and Nude Day story in the Magic of the Wood series for next year :p Hope to make it only the Earth Day one, though.
That’s going to be priority, due to the deadline, but the way I work means that I’ll likely do some writing on Lowborn and SOTM as well.
Those who have been with me for a while know that I hit these down points. There’s not a lot I can do about them other than put everything aside and vegetate for a while. The more I try to fight them, the worse they are and the longer they last, because not being able to write frustrates me, which only drops my motivation even lower.
I’m back to writing now, and we’ll see what’s in store as I move forward. I’m going to try much harder to keep the updates going here on the website as well. That’s even more unforgiveable than my spotty production rate. I could at least let you know that I’m in a down point and unable to write ( anything worth reading, anyway )
Figured I’d better drop a little update.
There are quite a few things moving, but I’m having to bounce around a lot. My focus is pretty sketchy right now.
I’m writing on the next chapter of SOTM, the final chapter of Lowborn, the Nude Day entry of Magic of the Wood, a multi-chapter Les-Lumens story that I had put on the back burner for quite a while, and have the beginning of a couple of other stories going as well.
I’m more or less blinking between documents and seeing which one is flowing. I have the plotlines sketched out in my head, but translating that into prose is where the issue comes up. Sometimes SOTM is working, sometimes it’s Lowborn. I just have to work on whatever is working for me on any given day.
The good thing about that is that they’re all coming along toward a conclusion point ( either a chapter or a story ) at about the same rate. Once I finish one of them, there’s a good chance that they may all start coming out in quick succession right afterwards.
That will be the next SOTM, 8 chapters of Lowborn, the new Magic of the Wood, and 4 chapters of that Les story. Quite a bit of new stuff.
Holding off on website updates for the moment, because I’m gearing up to do another set of big updates to the underlying software. Looking through the feedback, I decided to wait until the latest release was a little more stable, and it appears that time is now. Just need to find a good time to do it when I can be prepared to deal with any issues that crop up.
There’s lots going on in my head on a daily basis, which is usually the signal of a flurry incoming. When I have so many stories knocking around in my head, they build up and bust the dam that clogs up my creativity in time.
Figured I’d drop a line since I’m going through another bad period of not updating. I’ll see if I can’t correct that, at the very least.
I decided to put a few notes in the file for the Earth Day story and file it away for later. It’s just too late to finish it now and post it, with Earth Day nearly over at the moment. it may be next year’s Earth Day story, or get folded into another holiday theme at some time.
I’ve been working on Lowborn, trying to finish the last chapter. I’ve made a few tweaks to earlier chapters, and mused the ending quite a bit, and I think I may finally be ready to finish this sucker. Unless/until it stalls on me, I’m going to stick with it as a priority and try to get it done.
Also been musing on the next chapter of SOTM, naturally. I think I’m going to go ahead and write some of the scenes I carried over from musing on the previous chapter. I was trying to come up with the right transition scene, and it was eluding me. Maybe if I get moving forward with things I know are going to be in there, even if they aren’t the beginning, it will give me a jump start.
Otherwise, I’m beginning on a Nude Day story in the Magic of the Wood series. That one kept intruding on the Earth Day story and distracting me, so I’m hoping it will flow nicely and sort of make up for missing Earth Day this year.
A few other things, but that’s priority for the time being. I’m coming off a major motivation slump, so I’m not trying to overload myself too much.
