And that’s 6k

Up to 6k words on Heart. I had a bit of a rough spot, but I managed to find the right way to write it when I got home from work today. I’d probably have more done, but the young one has proved — shall we say — uncooperative =P

Hoping he’ll chill out and head for bed soon so I can finish that scene and get on to the next greater plot point. Once I’m over that hump, it should be smooth sailing until the end.

If things go as expected, SOTM 15 should go live at midnight tomorrow. If I happen to see it get pre-approved, I’ll post that up, but otherwise, I’ll post when it goes live — or post to grumble if it doesn’t go up tomorrow *laugh*

Heart up to 5200ish

If anybody missed it, Ch. 15 of SOTM is in the queue.

In the beginning of an establishment scene for my female protag that’s directly connected to that heart-string tugging ending of Heart of the Wood. I decided to combine a scene I’d already written and one that I had planned into one, to move the story along at a quicker pace, and I think it’s going to work out just fine.

After this one, I’m going to pass a little time with a paragraph, giving the couple a chance to get to know each other better without going through every date, leading into a main plot point — and a much delayed first kiss.

From there, it should be a whirlwind to the end. The main plot, the relationship, and the secrets both of my protags share are all going to come together, leading me right into that ending.

Damn, but it’s nice to feel good about this story after the way it’s sputtered since… late January, I think?

About another 15 minutes until the dryer finishes, and I think I’m going to take a break to work on that story in my 3rd name for a few minutes. I’d like to finish both Earth Day stories before jumping on to either Lowborn or the next chapter of SOTM. Accomplishing goals is another thing that motivates me to write, which is why I tend to have spurts where I put out a lot of work back-to-back.

If I can just keep from having something get in the way and stealing my momentum, I’ll be doing good. Lots of ideas flowing right now.

Ch. 15 in the queue

I just put Ch. 15 of Sisters of the Mists into the queue at Lit. If it follows the same turnaround time as the last one, it should come out as expected on Thursday night at Midnight.

This chapter is about 1500-2000 words longer than the last one, too.

Mark your calenders, and keep the feedback coming after you read it!

More Earth Day

Up to 4500 on Heart. I had a bit of a transition between a wider plot point and the next step in the relationship, and it took me a little while to muse out. I finished the transition a little bit ago, so now I get to write some fun banter and guarded looks, followed by a scene I can almost directly recycle from one of the previous versions, so I would guess that I’ll be up around 6K some time tomorrow.

Then, I can pass a little time with some generalities, moving on to both the next step of the relationship and the next greater plot point. From there, it’s just getting to the closure of the plot, getting them in bed, and wrapping up everything real nicely with the ending that I’ve had in mind since I conceived the piece — which I hope is the heart-string tug that will put this one over the top for the readers.

On top of that, I finally had a good idea for an Earth Day story in my third name. It’s taking an old passion, combining it with a new passtime, and using it as the basis of one character, while at the same time taking another story idea I’ve had for a while, and making that into the second character.

My stories in that pen name progress a lot more quickly than most of what I write — mainly because they’re plot lite — and that gets me to a naughty bits section a lot quicker. When I have something with plot to write when I feel like it and something hot and heavy to write when I don’t, I seem to keep my momentum rolling a lot better, so that’s very much a good thing.

Have a nice title and tagline for it, too. I think it will catch some eyes and get me some solid readership.

Now to chill for a while and hope the young one is actually winding down and not just saving strength to stay up all night on me.

Chapter images from Lit

For those who don’t visit the Literotica forums ( probably most of you ) I thought I’d post the little images I’m putting in my signature there to advertise new or upcoming chapters of SOTM, since it doesn’t actually have a cover image just yet. I’m still working on it.

The one I put up for Ch. 14 actually has a little of the imagery I’m working on for the cover, showing headshots of Danica and Celes.

This one is for Ch. 15, and it is meant to depict something specific from the chapter. Too bad you can’t really see the glowing heiroglyphs in this small image, but they’re actually there. Every little blue area on the skin is a different heiroglyph.

I’m going to warn you that — while tiny — this image is NSFW ( not safe for work )

I’m trying to provide a little space to hide it, should you choose to do so.

As long as you’re not using a higher screen resolution than me, this should do it.

Here it is:

I saw an email notification pop up while I was finishing this image, which tells me that Roust has finished the edit of Ch. 15. I’ll go through his suggestions here in a little bit, and if necessary, send back the changed draft for him to give one more look through.

That’s the (almost) final step to get it ready for posting. I actually do a lot of manual HTML formatting to the stories I post on Lit, and I’ll have to do that before it’s completely ready.

I did a read through Chapters 16 and 17 of SOTM, but those aren’t the final reads. When I do those, I change the font, which helps me catch errors. This was just making minor adjustments.

I also renamed the previous draft of Ch. 06 of Lowborn to “bak” in preparation to rewrite it from scratch. Never know when something I did write might come in handy, even if I don’t use it in the story I’m working on at the moment, so I save a lot of that stuff. Once I eventually get around to restoring the sections of the website, I’ll probably put a lot of that stuff up on a “cutting room floor” page again.

For now, I’m going to put on the Chrono Cross soundtrack ( the game was just okay, but the soundrack is pure awesomeness! ) and get back to Heart of the Wood.