Finished, and boy did that hurt.

Another issue done. Well, ‘done’ in the sense that all the words I wanted to put into it (13,059 of them, as it happens) are in it. That said, I haven’t re-read it yet for sense or coherency. So sorry, faithful reader – no release today. But soon. By Tuesday, so I can say I’m on bi-weekly schedule, kind of.

As you might have guessed from the post title, this one took a while to finish. For some reason the last scene, a scene that would normally be gravy (a transformation) just took forever to do. I’m not entirely sure why. It might be because I was trying to give it a sense of importance that it didn’t deserve. That’s kind of hard to gauge though; after all, the transformation bits are generally why you’re reading, so I’d imagine your reaction is probably “How could it not be important?”

Eh, I guess the point is when you feel like you’ve written this sort of thing every single different way you can think of, some days you just want to write “Then they got changed into a different outfit and went on their way”. It’s not as if I have actors or actresses in front of me giving me visual stimulation… instead it’s all in my head, and I’ve got to make them do interesting things. Otherwise they just sit around with blank looks.

Anyway, it is done, and in the last few lines I threw a wrench in my own plot because I thought it’d be fun. We’ll see… Future Ghostly might end up cursing my present self. (See what I meant about foreshadowing and plotting?)

Right. I feel like rambling on, so I think I’ll go shoot some posts into the future to make it look like I never leave the keyboard. Thanks for all the recent comments by the way people; I appreciate it a hell of a lot, especially when I’m forcing myself to try and write one more line.

Very, very quickly…

Much to my own surprise, Spider-Girl 13 is done!

I’d been tapping away at this for ages in fits and starts, just getting a few paragraphs done here and there, maybe a scene at a time… and then last night I realised I was a scene away from finishing. So I just wrapped it up.

It’s a bit of a ‘wrap up’ issue, and completes most of the dangling plotlines from the previous arc… and also establishes things for the next arc, which I know you’re bored of hearing about right now – Crossover.

I’ll do some clean-up on it in the next day or so, and hopefully will post before the weekend. Then it’s back to Project T and whatever else the noggin decides it wants to write!

Have a great day or night, depending on where you are….

At long bloody last

Just wrote the last few words for issue #12 of BBTSSG, as you might want to call it. FI-NA-LLY.

I tell you, this issue has been an absolute bitch to finish. Even though from the looks of things it ‘just’ took me a month or so to write, it felt waaaay longer to me. The whole thing seemed to move along in fits and starts, and I mean literally – some nights I’d sit for two hours and write two paragraphs. First I didn’t feel like the issue had enough, well, eroticism in it. Then, after I figured that out, I realised I had to go back and rewrite something in issue #11 that changed quite a few things in issue #12. Gaaawwwwwdddd! With all that crap in my head it’s a miracle I can come up with new ideas.

Oy. So where does this leave me?

Well first of all, my early plans to keep at least a ‘clear arc’ between whatever I’m currently writing, and whatever I’m currently releasing, are shot to hell.

That’s because right now, there’s no bloody way I can dive into issue #13 and beyond – which starts the next big arc, codenamed ‘Crossover‘. (The way I was previously planning, I’d finish ‘Crossover’ before I’d even release the arc I just finished, which covers issues #9-12.) I can’t do that though. For one thing, I have no idea where ‘Crossover’ is going, precisely. It’s like I can see the target but I need to hit the bullseye. I need to re-plot the whole thing, figure out what the high points are, and hopefully get a handle on how many issues it might end up being. (Because one thing I am going to keep doing is completing arcs before I release them. If – God forbid – I give up on the series entirely, I don’t want to do it in the middle of a half-released arc. I’m not that cruel….)

More importantly, right now, I’m just plain tired of writing this series. Issue #12 took a lot out of me – this arc as a whole, in fact. I still love the characters, love where they’re going, but it’s starting to feel a little same-y. The plot of ‘Crossover’ should freshen things up a bit, but I need a break, to let me recharge the batteries, get enthused for it again… so that it feels fresh when I write it.

So what about that break. Well, I have a couple of other things on the go. I have an old, half-completed story (called ‘Love Hotel‘) which I dusted off recently and might well try and complete; it’s maybe a third, perhaps half-finished, and after some intensive plotting sessions with a fellow author recently I know what I need to do to finish it off. It’s a ’straight’ (ie, no superheroes!), one-off story too… and pretty damn hardcore. So it’d be a real change of pace for me right now.

Second, I do have that Susan Storm mini-series idea… but I’d need to knuckle down and plot that a bit more carefully. I also now know, having finished issue #12, that I’d probably have to write issue #13 before I can get to it. That’s because…

… issue #12 ended up being looooong. For the record, it’s the biggest issue to date; over 12,000 words in total. Partially that’s because I added all that ‘extra sauce‘ to it (Yeah, ’slight twist’, my ass), and partially it’s because there was a lot of plot to get in. And there was actually even more to fit into it in the original synopsis. So that stuff, which is an essential bridge to the Susan Storm mini, will now have to go in issue #13. Which as I write this, I’m starting to think might have to be a standalone issue. Followed by the mini. Oh God, I’m rambling like a maniac.

Alright, one more thing and out. The nice coda to all this is my word count. Issue #12 takes me to over 100,000 words written for the series so far; that’s the size of a decent novel. Pretty cool.

Now click an ad and get outta here. Issue #9 will be out before the week’s over. Promise.

Time for a cold shower

Wow. It’s always, always just wonderful when a story takes an unexpected turn and what results is so much better than what you planned.

I just finished Spider-Girl issue #11, and I was working in that whole issue towards a particular scene – yes, a transformation scene. I’d been working out in my head specific ‘beats’, specific moments that I wanted to do, but honestly with these sorts of things I just tend to let it happen, and let the writing flow. All that bollocks.

However, what I’ve found to my utter amazement several times now is that right in the middle of those scenes… I’ll figure something out that’s so, so much better than what I thought. Suffice to say in the scene that I just wrote, an incredibly kinky (Well, to my mind) idea suddenly jumped into the middle of it and made it soooo much sexier. Mmmmm… hmmm.

Sorry it’ll be a while before you see it. But hey, look on the bright side; as I like to keep a respectable distance between issues I’ve released and issues I’ve finished, putting the ‘finished’ tag on issue #11 means you’re that much closer to issue #7. Which I don’t think y’all are gonna see coming….

Oh – happy Memorial Day if you’re in the US. And happy, er… wet Bank Holiday if you’re here in the UK. A perfect day to stay at home and read some dirty fiction.

At last

Put the finishing touches on Spider-Girl #10 last night, and I would have written about it then but finishing it had already made me late for a colleague’s leaving do (nothing like a pressing, imminent deadline to focus you, folks!).

Anyway, it’s done. At last. Even though my revision history says it ‘just’ took two weeks, it’s been a (very) tough two weeks personally, and I’ve been wanting to Get It Done during all that time. So now it finally is. Phew.

With that over, this weekend I’m going to be releasing not one, but two issues of Spider-Girl. Not because I’m feeling particularly generous… you’ll see why. I guess I am feeling sort of generous, but not in the way you’re expecting. If all goes well issue #5 will be online today, and issue #6 tomorrow. So I hope you enjoy.

Speaking of enjoyment, thanks to those of you who voted in both my polls on issue #4… looks like I’m polling along the same lines. Next stop: running for office.

That’s it for now, but I warn you, I’m feeling wordy. I may well be back later with more to say….

Gradual progress

So I finished Spider-Girl Issue #9 last night, which I’ll tell you is currently called Double Life. Dun-dun-daaaah!! Yeah I know, that reveals practically nothing, but that’s sort of the point… heh.

Took a little longer to finish than I expected, this issue, but I think that might be partially because it’s a new arc, so I’m finding my feet with it – and the plot is totally new, too, as I threw out my original Enforcers idea and went with something different (as previously mentioned). I’m looking forward to where this arc’s going, but this first issue (of four, probably, for the arc) is mostly just setup. The big payoffs will come in the following issues. Anyway, I wanted to let you know it’s still rolling.

In other writing, I’ve also written a bit more recently on Project T, and that’s looking better, too. It’s been on the backburner for a while as I’ve concentrated on Project SG (Spider-Girl) but I wanted to get working on it again. I’ve replotted the ending, and it’s a lot tighter than before… so I’ll just keep plugging away at it. I’m planning to release this as one big piece, but as I’m maybe half way through it, with 15k words written, it’ll be a while before it surfaces. What I’m absolutely not going to do is release half of it, or something. It’s not a serial, it’s one piece, and I’m not falling into the ‘release a bit of it to get feedback’ trap again.

If you’re wondering what Project T is about, by the way… well I’m not going to tell you. I will tell you it’s primarily focused on male-to-female masking, and that it’s more ‘R’ rated (that’s 18 for us Brits, and sorry, I don’t know movie ratings elsewhere!) than SG. The story isn’t exactly earth-shatteringly original, but I think it’s running quite nicely, and I’m enjoying it. Tonally (Wanky Writer Alert!) it’s completely different from SG, which is a really nice change when writing.

In fact, I think I’ll go tinker with it now. Cheerio!

Good and bad news

Good news: I finished Issue #7 of Spider-Girl (aka Project SG) today. This morning, in fact. In fact, I arrived at work late because I was finishing it. Lucky for me I’m pretty much my own boss, so no-one batted an eyelid. Or questioned my erection. (Kidding. Just seeing if you’re awake.)

Good or bad news, depends on your point of view: As I figured, the storyline that was originally plotted to fit in Issue #7 will now extend into Issue #8. (If you’re wondering, I try and keep each issue at between 7,000 and 9,000 words, or so. The first two issues were shorter than this, but then I was finding my voice, characters, etc etc. Hence me going back to re-edit and expand.) Anyway – yay, more new stuff in Issue #8, but boo, that means….

Bad news: It’ll be a while longer before I release Issue #3 and beyond, because I still want to finish this particular arc before I release anything new. Why? Because I said so. And also because when I’ve finished this arc, I have a strong feeling I will need to re-plot the next arc (which isn’t, frankly, sexed up (!) enough) before I get to the fifth arc that I have planned, which in my opinion, is an absolute doozy. I really don’t think you’ll expect what’s going to happen in it. At all.

(Shit, I’m starting to sound like Mark Millar. Must stop that. Sorry, in-joke for comics nerds.)

So just to balance this all out, let’s finish with some…

Good news: I’ll definitely work on editing/expanding the first two issues this weekend, and then will release them on maskingwriter. (Anyone else got alternative release venues they’d like to see? Let me know in comments.) So that should hopefully whet your appetite for the new stuff.

Gotta run. Vote in the poll if you haven’t already. And remind me to talk about arcs.

The secret origin of Spider-Girl (part 1)

Well, I just finished another part of Project SG a couple of minutes ago. The ending got a little sticky there, but I think that was me this morning, not the ending. If that makes sense. You’ll be glad to know, it involves masking….

The best moments in writing are really when you reach beyond yourself and tap into the elemental process that makes writing happen. Some people have called it magic, and I actually believe that’s close to the truth. It’s very personal, but it’s also very real… it’s what makes writing worthwhile. I got to one of those moments this morning, unexpectedly. Sometimes you have to just keep going even when you think what you’re writing is terrible, because sometimes ‘it’ just happens, and you’ll find you’re writing better than you thought you could.

Enough of the philosophy though. Another part – or Issue – is done, and I think I’m overdue to talk about this bad boy. Or girl.

As I’ve said those of you with long memories* may recall I originally released two ‘issues’ of The New Adventures of Spider-Girl. Issue #2 ended up on a huge cliffhanger which I realised when I was writing, I really had no ‘out’ for, but like an idiot I wrote it anyway.

I think sometime after that I may have said in some forum or other that I was stuck on where to take the story, and Steve Zink – whose work, and particularly his level of output, I really admire – took the story and ran with it, producing an ‘unofficial’ Issue #3 which fairly neatly resolved things.

While it was great to see someone do something with my aborted plotline, and fairly flattering as well, Steve’s story choices weren’t the same as I would have made. That didn’t make them any less valid, they just weren’t my choices, and I always wondered where I’d have taken the plot next… if only I could write my way out of that cliffhanger.

It literally took me a few years to resolve, but then one day it hit me. With one simple idea linked to an original Spider-Man issue (“Didn’t Spidey visit the FF in like, issue #1 of Amazing Spider-Man?”) not only did I have the cliffhanger resolved, I had a resolution that gave me a massive springboard for future plots. On a long plane ride somewhere (as I vaguely recall) I started plotting Spider-Girl’s future, and before too long I had the cliffhanger resolution and something like 20 issues worth of material, packed full of delicious identity-changing, disguise and masking focused goodness.

I even started writing the fabled (to me) Issue #3 right there on the plane – on a Palm IIIx no less – but then it all fizzled out again. Probably because I landed somewhere.

Which brings us pretty much back up to date. Next time – because a shower, shit and a shave beckons me before work – I’ll talk a bit more about how I got stuck in another bloody ‘plothole’ at the end of my Issue #3, and how I finally got out of that. In the meantime, feel free to read my original two Issues and Steve Zink’s ‘alternate’ Issue #3 right over here.

Enjoy. There’s more where that came from.

* Don’t blame yourself if you’re thinking “I don’t even remember and I feel like I’ve been reading this stuff for ages…” I’m not even sure myself but it looks like Issue #1 and #2 were written sometime in 2000. You know, back when we all lived in the future.

Done! Ding! Gratz!

Another part of Project SG* is done… woo! Largest part yet, which is surprising as I thought it’d be short… I’m just having too much fun.

I think the next part should write like butter too… er, does butter write? You get my meaning. Smooth like butter. Flow like butter. There’s butter involved. Well, on my toast.

It’s early dammit, and I’m on a writing buzz! More soon.

*What, no guesses yet?