Writing projects update… January

So I think I might do these semi-regularly from now on… the first two got a lot of traffic. Hopefully not just from people who are basically not at all interested in Spider-Girl and are looking for other stuff….

Anyway for anyone who’s not read one of these before, here’s what I’m either thinking about, plotting or possibly even writing at the moment that I’m not talking about extensively. Everything gets assigned a letter, just to confuse me. There’s no guarantee anything here will ever see the light of day, but if something catches your imagination… let me know.

Project T hasn’t been worked on for a while (bear in mind before I came back to Spider-Girl recently, I hadn’t worked on anything since September), but just so you know, it’s at just under 50,000 words… and I think could well be double that when it’s done. I basically think it’s a novel, now. I won’t be releasing it until it is done, either – with the exception of serial stuff like Spider-Girl, that has no fixed ending, I’m trying not to release parts of things if they’re not finished. Just FYI.

Anyway, the writing of that has been a lot of fun. I got past a major, major scene a while back which had been in my head forever, and when it was down on paper I felt so close to it I couldn’t even tell if it was any good. I sent it to an ‘independent adjudicator’ and I’m happy to report he gave it a glowing report card. So hey, I know at least one part of it is good.

As I’ve said before, but just for the record, this is a male-to-female story involving bodysuits.

Other stuff I’ve actually written words for; several years ago Victor and I sort-of collaborated on a story I called Housesitting, which we never finished, although I have about 12,500 words of it done. Frankly I was never that happy with the plot that we came up with, and yesterday I finally re-plotted the whole thing (hence my post on plotting).

I’m a lot happier with the potential for it now; it seems a lot sturdier to me, with some interesting interactions I’ve never written before. (For ‘interactions’ you can also read ’sex’ if you like.) I can see myself tapping away at this for a bit and seeing how it goes. This is another male-to-female story, but more traditional – a kid imitating his mother using a mask.

I mentioned Love Hotel before… I will finish this one day, but honestly I’ve got to be in the right mood. What’s written of it was done in 2001 in a hotel on a business trip… perhaps the next time I’m alone in a foreign clime with time on my hands I’ll get it done. (And I do have a potential trip in the first half of this year….) I’d like to tell you what it involves, but it’d spoil the surprises….

Father Knows Best, some of you will remember I’m sure. (Three parts were released a few years ago, but I never finished it – dammit.) I really want to finish this but I still don’t know what the hell the ending is. It might just need a complete re-plotting session, like Housesitting… I’ll try and do that, we’ll see what I come up with.

Moving on to stuff that’s plotted, or semi-plotted, but not written at all… I have a complete outline for what should in theory be a ’short’ but knowing me it won’t be! Lemme see… I guess that would be Project A, but I know that’ll confuse me so let’s just give it a working title – Anita. Believe it or not this is a female-to-male story, with some other stuff I won’t spoil. Any interest?

What else, jeez… I guess there’s Project TNG, which is long, has a very complex plot and would be a huge challenge to write, as previously mentioned. I still don’t have an ending for that damn thing so it’ll probably stay untouched until I figure that out. It’s primarily female-to-female, but has female-to-male stuff in there too.

I mentioned something called Project B before, and just to allow you to connect the dots, that’s actually The Babysitter (a working title) which I talked about the inspiration for a little while back. So re-read that post and imagine if you like. (Or even better, suggest your ‘Holy cow, my babysitter is actually a masked hottie’ fantasies to me and give me some material.)

Project TSL is my serial story, the one inspired by The Black Widow. I do want to do this, but plotting it is actually a lot harder than expected. I will get to it, but the plot needs to be totally done, and I’d be writing it in either 9 or 13 parts, so that’s quite a lot of plot. Wait and see.

And finally… Project AC isn’t dead, but it sure isn’t very alive either. Frankly I can’t see myself working on it until Spider-Girl is done… so that’s a loooong way away. But never say never. Project G… uhh, we should probably forget about that. It’d be huge, and it’s an idea without a story, really, and would need researching and… life’s too short.

That’s it. If you want to see any other post where I talk about these projects, then helpfully, they’re all filed under ‘projects’.

Project T, as of tonight…

31,228 words.

That is all. G’night!

No surprise there, then

Yeah, so as you can see I didn’t post Spider-Girl #12 this weekend… apologies for that. I’m going to try and find the time to edit and post it this week, because my weekend is looking very busy. Have some patience here people – it’s as big as issue #11, with a lot more twists, turns and emotional rollercoaster type stuff… so that takes time to get right.

The weekend wasn’t a total loss on the writing front, though. I did make a bit more progress with Project T, and also refined the idea of Project B a bit more with the help of a secret co-plotter who I consult with on these things. There are many more twists and turns to it now, and I think I know how it needs to be written (ie, what voice, etc). The question now just is, when will I write it. Don’t hold your breath just yet!

Heads up

This is a quick post to give you advance notice that I can’t guarantee Spider-Girl #12 will go online this weekend. I know I’ve left you all hanging on anxiously, but don’t get too excited. The next issue wraps up the whole Doc Ock arc, and while I hope you like it, I doubt you’ll like it as much as #11. I know I sure as hell didn’t like writing it as much.

Anyway, I have quite a few things to do this weekend and also I know I’ll want to take some time to edit and polish #12, so I’m just saying right now that I can’t guarantee it’ll appear in the next two days. Just FYI.

Elsewhere, I’ve been enjoying moving forward with Project T, which sits in another tab at just over 28k words now. I don’t think I’ve said this before specifically, but I generally aim for a PG-13 (in US parlance) sort of rating with Spider-Girl… there’s quite a lot of talk about sex, and implied sex, and occasional actual sex… but it’s not full-on, Technicolor sex. Nor are there curse words – y’know, to save the kids.

Well, it’s nice to occasionally write full-on Technicolor sex and use as many curse-words as I like, put it that way….

Oh! Also, I came up with something entirely brand new in the ol’ shower this morning. By the time I’d had breakfast the idea was pretty much locked. However, I had another thought this evening which I thought I’d run by you.

This story idea could basically have a character in it that’s a female, masking as another female. Or, it could be a man, masking as a woman. Then it hit me; maybe it could be both. It might be fun to actually write two different endings to the story – or two different second halves, I guess – and let you choose your preferred kink.

Good idea? Bad idea? Let me know. Got no idea when I might get to writing said idea, but hey. We’ll call it Project B for now.

Progress on Project T

Welcome to August. Don’t know about your part of the world, but after one of the wettest summer periods on record here in the UK, it’s good to see (and feel) some sunshine….

I had the day off work today, so I managed to get a bit of writing done, and it wasn’t on Spider-Girl. Instead I tapped away at Project T, which I know I’ve mentioned recently, but I’m not sure I’ve mentioned that it’s over 25k words now. I’m definitely finishing this thing before I actually release it, but when I do let it loose I may serialise it, I may not. Any preferences?

I think sometimes when I release really big chunks of writing, you guys either don’t read it or don’t have the time to read it. I sympathise – I can be the same way – but obviously I don’t want to write something of maybe 40-50k words and then have no-one read it…!

Aaanyway, it’s going pretty well right now, is Project T. I’ve been doing some re-plotting and I like the shape of it now. So all I’ve got to do is keep banging away at it.

BTW, clicked on an ad recently? They’re just down and to the right. Just sayin’.

Projects update

So, according to my stats, one of the more popular pages here is the one where I first introduced my various ‘Alphabet Projects‘.

Quite possibly that’s just because it’s linked from the right hand side as the only place to get more info on Project T, and if you’re not a fan of Spider-Girl, then I guess I could see why you might want to know more on what else I’m working on.

This post’s for you, then.

Project T is in fact making a bit more progress. I’ve basically just completed another big scene in it, so another large chunk is done. Weirdly enough that scene has proved that my previous concern – that the main action would be “boring to describe” – doesn’t have to be such a concern. (Although I sort of cheated in said scene to make it work.) Anyway, the story moves along organically, this one. I know where the final destination is – in fact, the plot’s quite tight – but there will probably be some… interesting side-roads along the way.

Just to satisfy those of you into ‘certain things’ by the way, I’ll classify some of these projects so you know what you’ll be getting (others I won’t, because I don’t want to spoil the surprise). In this case, Project T is a ‘M2F’ masking story (male to female… crossdressing… transgender… whatever) involving bodysuits. Those are your keywords.

Let’s see… Project AC is pretty much back-burnered for now. The initial idea was pretty huge, and while I’ve fleshed it out some, I haven’t gotten too heavily into it. I have some hand-scribbled plot notes (in fact, I worked on those today) but not much else. I’m not giving too much away by saying it’s kind of similar in tone to Spider-Girl, so honestly I can’t see me getting to it any time soon. Unless inspiration strikes.

The other thing I’ve revived is a really, really old story from 2001 or thereabouts, which I did quite a lot of work on way back then. I mentioned this before – it’s called Love Hotel. I can see myself getting to this at some point and just blitzing through it. We’ll see.

That’s it. I’ll update the sidebar, I think, too.

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!

Writing is easy; plotting is hard

When I know where I’m going with a story, I find it relatively easy to write all the way through to the destination. It’s figuring out the route – in other words, plotting the story – that’s difficult. Been having some problems with that this weekend.

I finished another chunk of Project SG a few days ago, and while I was fairly pleased that I’d managed to tweak it from my original outline to include an erotic scene*, as a result it left me just ever-so-slightly off course from the original plotline. And you know how lost you can get when you meant to take that left turn at Alberquerque.

While I knew where I was supposed to go with the story next, something bothered me about that direction – and it stopped me writing. Unfortunately I couldn’t put my finger on just what was bothering me for most of this weekend, until last night I figured it out: after reviewing the plot outline for the next section of the story, I realised it was just plain lame.

Which meant, I knew, that I was going to have to re-plot a large chunk of what I’d had down for absolutely ages. Which also meant, I knew, hours staring into space trying to come up with plausible – but preferably erotic – ideas.

You see, I have quite high standards for anything I write, and believe it or not that includes fiction that’s pretty much solely designed to get you off. I have several criteria I like to fulfil whenever I’m writing:

1. The plot has to make sense. If (in the case of a masking story) it’s nonsensical and just a bunch of sex scenes in a row, it’s just not going to have that much power and it’s going to be boring to write.
2. Character motivations have to be believable. I ask myself the question “Yes, but why are they doing that?” an awful lot. If I can’t answer it then I have to keep asking it until I can come up with a good reason. (Sometimes coming up with that good reason takes years. Sometimes it never happens.)
3. The story has to maintain internal plausibility. Most of the time what I write can generously be called ’science fiction’ but with a few elements aside, I write as close as I can to the real world. So things have consequences and generally make sense. I ask you to accept one unbelievable thing (or several that are related to each other) but everything else has to make sense in that universe.

Doing all these things, while writing a plot that makes sense and having erotic stuff that isn’t just spliced into the main narrative like bad movie editing… is actually kinda tough. Poor me.

One thing that I’m constantly reminded of while plotting is that stories that involve deception and disguise are just hard to write. (Why? You’re dealing with multiple points of view all the time; you’re constantly referring to people in different ways; you always have to keep the reader in mind, to make sure they’re not confused – or that they are confused… I could go on.) In fact I have some things plotted or half-plotted but unwritten yet, like Project TNG, because the plot is so complex that I end up tied in knots, trying to figure out how to actually resolve the damn thing. (This is when I call on external opinions, which usually jumpstarts the process.)

Complex plotting was partially what I was dealing with last night, but what I was really looking for as I sat in my ‘writing chair’ for something like five hours was the magic idea. Which sometimes comes immediately, and sometimes comes after five hours. Eventually it did come (“… I get her to come back and help out! Of course!”) but it took a loooong time. Hence my thoughts about how plotting is hard… writing is easy.

So writers, the lessons from today, in summary, and using some more bullets…

• Plotting any story is hard
• Plotting an erotic story (where the eroticism comes out of the situations and characters) is harder
• Plotting a masking story is harder than plotting a ‘normal’ story…
• Ergo, plotting an erotic masking story is the hardest bloody thing of all!

So good luck. I look forward to reading what you come up with.

* Erotic, of course, in terms of our specific, masking fetish. I don’t let you down.

Lightbulb moments

Should I stay or should I go… actually there’s no debate over that. I’m due at a friend’s girlfriend’s birthday in about an hour, so I won’t be able to sit and write this evening… despite really, really wanting to. So instead, I thought I’d quickly jot some thoughts in here about lightbulb moments.

One of the ‘perils’ of being a writer is that an idea can hit you at any time, and sometimes it can feel like the absolute best idea in the world, and one you have to write immediately. Which is a real pain in the ass when you’re trying to be good and continue what you’re currently working on, because your mind can suddenly start working overtime on the new idea, and the current idea suddenly seems more like a chore to write than a joy. This of course, is just my experience, but I don’t think the concept of ’shiny new thing’ being more exciting that ‘dull old thing’ is that out there.

On top of that though, I’d argue it’s actually a lot worse if you’re writing erotic fiction, because of course then your new idea tends to be something that actually arouses you more than your current muse. So then your urge to explore that idea is even stronger, because hey, it’ll get you off. The unique challenges I face to bring you spank material, eh..?

Anyway, regardless of the fact that they can throw you off track and make you veer away from the direction you’re heading, these ‘lightbulb moments’ are totally and utterly precious, and should be cherished. That’s why when I get them, I’m very happy.

(I call them lightbulb moments, by the way, because of that cartoon tradition of seeing a lightbulb go on over someone’s head to illustrate an idea being formed. It’s when the spark of creativity meets the practicality of creation. God, that sounds wanky. But it’s basically that “Eureka!” moment, although I doubt Archimedes was having a sex fantasy when he said that. Although he was apparently in a bath, so….)

I’ve been blessed over the years with a few close ‘net friends who I can count on to occasionally provide these moments. Sometimes it just happens gradually, through casual conversation about mutual kinks. Sometimes it’s forced to happen, like when I’ve asked for close examination of a piece of writing I’m working on, to get past a block.

And sometimes it happens spontaneously – like a bolt from the blue – when someone suggests something you’d never thought of:

“You know who I thought would make a perfect comic book masking character? Selina Kyle.”

That’s how great ideas get started. Thanks, Val, as always.

Oh incidentally? We’ll be calling that Project AC. Consider it on a backburner… but still bubbling.

Purring right along

Work on Project SG is proceeding much faster than I expected, which feels fantastic. I blew through over 7,000 words in a day on this past weekend, and I’ve added another 7,000 since then. To put this in perspective, I literally was stuck on previous chapters for years. So this feels like lightspeed writing by comparison.

Part of the reason is that I’m not just writing erotic scene after erotic scene, and that there’s plenty of character stuff… much of which revolves around erotic stuff, and thoughts about sexuality and masking and disguise and deception. But still. It’s considerably easier to write. A lot like action scenes, sex scenes can get really tough to do without sounding shit… although unlike action scenes, I usually find I have a very good personal system to determine if a sex scene is working or not. (Now you know, non-writers, why erotic fiction takes so damn long to write. Frequent breaks. I find a wife helps with that….)

Anyway, just wanted to say to the world “Woo-hoo, I’m writing!” and then get back to it. By the way, has anyone guessed what Project SG is yet? I’m willing to guess it’ll disappoint a few people, but ah, who cares – I’m having a blast….