Story Idea in the Back of my Head

Writer's journal: The end of the month is coming up fast. I'm editing The Adjusters #20, which I know many of you have been waiting for patiently. Which means that my back's to the wall and I have to decide on something I've been going back and forth over for the past month. Thankfully, it's not a large plot point. Meanwhile, I'm hacking away on #23, which is looking like another 10K+ words monstrosity. But I keep stealing time away from it to hack away on a later episode (a much later episode) that has caught my imaginative fancy and that I had to write parts of lest it disappears back into the fine mist where ideas live.

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There's been a story in the back of my head that has been knocking over and over at the door of the conscious writing part of my brain, begging for attention. And unfortunately, I can't find a way to fit it in the Adjusters universe. Which usually means that if I cannot find a way to fit it in and I cannot get rid of it eventually, I will have to write it.

The idea is simple. In fact, it's not even a full-fledged idea. It's really just a bunch of characters. And it's the oldest story in the book: a high-school boy befriends the friendly and sexy single neighbor, who teaches him the ways of love. Need I say that the neighbor in question is a retired porn star? And that she turns him into an irresistible babe magnet? And that the mob comes knocking because of an old story between the neighbor and an infatuated boss that went wrong? I'm seeing Kayden Kross in the title role—my current porn crush. (I'm allowed to have porn crushes, right? That's not too weird?)

It doesn't take a psychologist to figure out where this is coming from. As I said in my last post, I've been re-reading a bunch of Vulgus stories, and one of them is 400mm of Mrs. Hanson, an ultimately rather disappointing story except for a couple of hot scenes, I'm sorry to say, but with a great character, the—wait for it!—sexy older neighbor who teaches the protagonist the ways of love, one lovely (and delightfully perverted) Cassidy Hanson.

And one of my favorite stories ever, as the lot of you well know, Bluedragon's An Ordinary Teenage Sex Life, starts out with the protagonist meeting up with his—yup—sexy older neighbor who teaches him the ways of love, the lovely and sexually enthusiastic Keira McNeil.

You know, now that I think of it, I suspect there's an old leftover fantasy from my teenage years lurking, here...

Oh, before I leave, I should point out that I'm back on Twitter. After a long silence. Still not sure what I'm doing there, but from what I gather from the people I follow, neither do they, so I'm in good company. If you're in the neighborhood, feel free to drop by and say hi.

A New Chapter of Callie's Downfall

I've seen a slight spike in the numbers of people coming to visit this blog, and we've had quite interesting comments in the Speculation Thread, so let me welcome our new readers to this little corner of the porny world. Remember that I purposely do not interact in the Speculation Thread (except possibly to remove abusive comments, which thankfully has not happened yet because you have all been a wonderful bunch of upstanding folks), so if you have a question that you'd like an answer to, or just want to say hi, feel free to drop a comment on any other thread.

Two questions about The Adjusters that came up in the last few weeks I'd like to answer though. Just to make sure we're all on the same page. First, people seem to have the feeling that the story will end soonish. Do not fear. This tale is for the long run. In my head, it's less a single story, and more like a classic serial. Think your favorite monthly comic book. Except without pictures. That's one of the reasons why I'm posting once a month, as opposed to racing to the finish line. It's not going to be in sight for a long while.

(Related: I'm plowing through the trade paperbacks of Fables right now, by Bill Willingham—that's one kick-ass series. I highly recommend it. Almost as good as Neil Gaiman's Sandman.)

Second thing: the ending. Between the people that want the happy ending, and people that do not want the happy ending, there seems to be an irreconcilable clash. Which is very interesting to me. I make no secret that the story has a happy ending, although happiness is always in the eye of the beholder. But before getting there, there will be trials, there will be tribulations, there will be adventures. Yet I think that even those that do not want a happy ending will be satisfied. Because I'm aiming for a satisfying ending, and perhaps more importantly, one that makes sense given where the story is going.

(Related: I've run across the following interesting post by A. C. Crispin on How to Satisfy Your Reader without Being Predictable that is likely relevant to exactly this topic.)

Smut-wise, not much to report.

There's a new chapter for Minty's Callie's Downfall over at Storiesonline. Updates are sadly very infrequent, but the story is still good. I've talked about this story here.

Aside from that, I've mostly be re-reading a couple of stories by Vulgus, especially Brooke Can't Drink. I've talked about that story here (but I'm providing the Storiesonline link here, which holds the whole story, as opposed to the link I gave earlier.) And I'm starting to understand better the rumors that maybe Vulgus is not the bona fide author of those stories. His stories are written in sometimes very distinct styles. Something to investigate there. Maybe he's like TheEditor, that fixture on alt.sex.stories back in the days, who would republish old classics.

New Story: The Adjusters #19

For once, an episode that is not late. Here is August's episode of The Adjusters, "A Day in the Life (II)", wherein we follow another Delta Iota Kappa girl on a typical day.

As usual, comments welcome.

I'll also remind you that we have a Speculation Thread available for discussion. (A thread which I read but do not comment on.)


19 - A Day in the Life (II)

Kyra MacKenna exhaled as the treadmill beeped and steadily decreased
its speed from eight miles an hour down to a walkable three, and wiped
the sweat off her brow. She was glad she had managed to put in a short
thirty minutes run before her trainee showed up. One of the upsides of
being a personal trainer, aside from the fee, was unhampered access to
the best gym in the University at any time of the day or night.

The downside, of course, she reflected as she felt her pulse return to
normal, was that it ate into her preciously rare free time. Between
her classes and her painting, she did not have much time
left. Personal training helped pay the bills, as did illustrating that
biology textbook currently getting written by one of her
professors. Whatever time was left was devoted to Jackson, which she
did not regret. Not one bit. She was starting to think of him as her
boyfriend.

They had actually not talked about any of that yet -- she did not want
to be the one to broach the subject, and she suspected Jackson did not
want to either. Still, the fact remained that they were spending a lot
of time together, doing all the things that couples did, including
banging each other like bunnies in heat, and he had been spending the
night at her place more and more frequently these last two weeks. Kyra
knew that this was more than just hooking up. She liked Jackson, and
it was pretty clear to her that he liked her back. Which elated
her. And had her feelings on the matter not been blatant enough, that
her paintings had started to shift towards warmer colors and away from
the blues and grays of much of what she have been naturally using
since starting at Darnell would have been proof enough.

Continue reading...


Next month, episode 20: "A Day in the Life (III)".