How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Porn · 7:11pm Jul 31st, 2014
Well, as July ends, so, too, does my Clopmas in July project. What started as a little exercise to try and improve my productivity turned into a pretty rousing success, I think. Among the month's accomplishments:
- I finished all the stories I had planned, and, with the exception of "Bon the Miffy", I got them all done on time.
- Between the four stories and the third chapter of Persona, I wrote over 28k words. For me, that's huge.
- I nearly tripled by follower-count (hi new people!)
- I pushed my total story views over 20,000
- Both "The Power of Suggestion" and "Bon the Miffy" got onto the feature box. My first stories to do so, to my knowledge (I didn't really pay attention to the feature box back when I wrote my first two stories).
It wasn't easy, and my inner devil, perched on my shoulder in a barcalounger, tried his best to lure me back to my lazy ways. But I did it, and I've got a nice little afterglow going on.
It was also a success in that I learned a valuable lesson: It's okay to write porn. I mean--yeah--I've technically always written porn (I could write a whole blog in which I laid out my philosophy on erotica and enumerated the reasons why I write it, when I could just as easily write non-erotica, but that would be even more onanistic than the stuff I usually write, so...), but this is different. I've always adhered to the idea that it should be "Story first, porn second". And make no mistake: That's still my overall policy. But I've always shied away from writing porn-for-porn's-sake. I thought it'd be a sell-out, or something. But this month, my stories were far more porny than usual, and things turned out just fine. It's sort of a load off to know that the world won't end if I write porn with a capital-P.
So, for all the reasons above--for reading my stories, liking/faving them, leaving comments and giving me feedback, and just generally showing that you care--thank you all so much. All of this has given me a major infusion of confidence and encouragement.
So, what of the future?
Well, for now, I'm sorta porned out. With the exception of Persona, I'll probably be taking a short break. Persona is an exception because, despite having sex scenes, there's enough other elements and character development and so forth that it still seems fresh and interesting to me. It is, by far, the story I'm proudest of, and my goal remains to finish it by the end of the year.
That isn't to say I don't have other ideas, because I do. And if season five is anything like season four, I'll only have even more ideas before long. But for the immediate future, Persona will be my primary focus.
That's all. Thanks again.
It's really great watching an author hit their stride, and let me tell you, you've been hitting that stride like a rented mule. You've been churning out stories faster than I could clear them from my Read Later list this month, and Persona is fast becoming one of my favorite currently-updating fics.
Thank you for producing this bounty of ponyfic for us, be it dirty or not. I am very glad that you feel good about it, because you really should. I'll be looking forward to what you have in store for us next.