Well, there are several things to discuss this week, but before I do anything else, let me give a huge shout-out and congratulations to AJ_Aficionado, whose entry into the Found out February clopfic contest soared to #1 on the feature list, and took home the $200 top prize! It was a smashing success, as he played the site's meta game and won it, finding the perfect slot to submit his story in that all but ensured it took off.
The last set will be chapters 23-25, with another brief but intense M-rated scene in Part 25. I had intended to release it tonight, but I’m going to delay a couple days to allow my prereaders a chance to catch up to it and give myself a break. So be looking for it this weekend.
3 out of 5 are in with a 4th in progress. And so far they’re quite positive, though I did end up having to excise an 800-word sequence towards the end when at least one prereader objected. I decided after sleeping on it that they were right and it was indeed over the line. That’s why writers need prereaders, folks—to save you from yourself.
Well, I admit I’m feeling better about Harmonic Resonance now, as the downvote brigades appear to have dried up and it’s been getting a steady trickle of new likes and tracks since. It should easily top 40 likes and 100 tracks before the year’s end, which gives it a decent but not spectacular start. I suspect at this point the main issue in the initial launch was twofold: clop readers want instant gratification, so as an earlier commenter suggested, they tend to be a bit turned off by
I’m calling it a successful release of C&C Chapter 15 yesterday, with a bevy of new tracks and two new likes, taking me all the way up to 150! That means I now have nearly a tenth the audience the original story did...
Doesn't matter if I'm a Sociopath or not. I'm here on this site... I am STAYING on this site... and there's NOTHING... you can do about it.
People still get up my butt for having Count Logan (a cursed, reincarnation of Beast Boy) Kill the infant by pulling off her head like a cork.
Well, there WERE alternate ideas, but none of them would have mattered anyway if I had done them.
Instead of having him pull off Flurry's head...
The Eros update is simple: Chapter 13 will be released tonight at around 7pm US Eastern Standard Time, and thus far most of my prereaders seem to love it. I might have indulged a little fanservice with them as well, adding a couple things they requested along the way. But I don’t think readers will mind!
But still have a lot of malaise after four days down with the flu. No joke, folks. This is the worst bout I’ve had with it in about twelve years. Anyway, just wanted to give one last update on Feathered Hearts before the fourth and final chapter of this rapid-fire release sequence is launched.
So, to overwhelmingly greater demand than I expected (i.e. any,) I am delving into the official Friendship is Magic novels. There are a staggeringly high number of them, along with journals, mysteries, handbooks (hoofbooks?) and more. I have a newfound respect for G. M. Berrow in terms of her sheer output. In any case, let’s see what the very first one has to offer.
There is a poll I posted on an earlier blog against Feathered Hearts: Continuation and Chronicles asking what I should work on next. As I decided it was unfair to tag that story but exclude my others, I’m posting additional blogs for readers of my other active stories as well. If you want to sound off, you can do so
Well, I’m slowly getting better, though I still tire easily, remaining quite congested and not allowed to blow my nose. As a matter of fact, as soon as I post this blog, I believe I’m going to attempt taking a nap. At least I’ve made this week off more or less productive, taking care of chores and getting some promised writing done.
Namely, that the next Continuation and Chronicles chapter will be out within a week. Even though I meant to finish the Harmonic Resonance epilogue first, I’ve just been charging through this latest entry at breakneck speed and it’s now likely to be draft complete within a day or two. It’s already at 10k words and likely to be at least 12k by the time it’s released, so you’ll be getting another nice meaty chapter, with severe suspense once again being the theme.
No new Firefly content on September 1st, which was the anniversary of Into the Storm’s 2017 launch (and deliberately chosen for also being the anniversary of the start of WWII). Feels a little odd to not be working on it now, but I’ll get back to it eventually. In the meantime, an update on my other stuff, including Feathered Hearts and Harmonic Resonance:
All but one, anyway. So far, the chapter seems to be a hit, leaving us on schedule for a Halloween night release. It'll be a shorter chapter (around 9k words) than those I've released earlier in the year, but that's because it’s a prelude to a much longer and more intense one to come.
Hey, folks. Feeling better and finally back on my usual time zone after two good nights’ sleep, though my cold remains. Regarding Feathered Hearts, I did indeed decide to split up what was turning into another enormous final chapter of the Gilda vs Cipio arc. Though tempted to keep it all together as a climactic chapter, I’m going to break it both for purposes of storytelling and to keep the heavy M-rated part of the chapter more isolated. So you’re going to get a ~9,000 word chapter to
The first Eros chapter awaits one more completed preread and an additional editing pass before publishing. I’ll do the latter this evening after I get home from work, as the plan remains to launch it tonight at around 8 PM US Eastern. If I’m lucky, it will feature for the first time. I think the like/dislike ratio is good enough at this point.
Consider it an early Christmas present, though I’m not going to get the next chapter after this done in time for Xmas. But that’s okay—you’ll get nearly 19,000 words in this one. Or I can break it in two to give more bite-sized pieces of clop, releasing them a few days apart. Guess we’ll see how I feel when the time comes.
After a couple false starts, I finally figured out how I’m going to fix the last Midnight Rising chapter and am attacking it with gusto now, though I’ve also been sparing some time to tweak the new Eros chapter that is only awaiting its final prereads.