Saturday, January 26, 2019

New Short Story: Joey Farrell Walks Into An Obvious Booby Trap

I finally managed to finish that boobie monster girl story I've hinting at for a while.

It is a Patreon exclusive (temporary) for patrons, because those of you that have been supporting me on there deserve something for your support.  If you're not for whatever reason, don't worry, I will be including the story in my next short story collection (still in progress).

I also have another story in progress which I will be putting up on Literotica.  I don't intend paywalling everything, but I'd like to be able to give patrons something semi-exclusive every month.

As for my own feelings on Patreon, I still don't like them, but I haven't found a better alternative, so I'm stuck there for now.  As I mentioned in the Patreon post, I can't really commit to it as a reliable income stream, so I will be focusing on writing some new ebooks (short story collections, ideally a third Succubus Summoning novel) rather than the CYOA game scenarios on Twine I created last year. 

Here is a link to the new story (patrons only, sorry):
https://www.patreon.com/posts/new-short-story-24241798

If you are a patron, enjoy boobs, lots and lots of demon boobs!  If not, I hope to have something for you on Literotica fairly soon.

Also, this story was initially planned to go out in November.  If you were a patron for the month of November, but aren't now for whatever reason, you're still entitled to a copy of the new story.  Email me at manyeyedhydraATgooglemail.com and I'll email you back a copy if I can find your name on the list of former patrons.

Damn, this was far easier when I just put up ebooks on Amazon!

Anyway, this week has been a a fairly good week for writing.  The break in Prague seems to have done me some good (apart from bringing back the plague).

Saturday, January 19, 2019

Bohemian Adventures and Plagues

Because things haven't been chaotic enough recently, I decided to grab a last minute week in Prague with the money I'd picked up recently from my other, occasional, non-writing work.  I didn't go anywhere much last year and felt a change of scenery would do me some good, blow some cobwebs out, that sort of thing.

Ostensibly, the purpose for the trip was an event happening at the weekend, but I managed to find a good deal on a flight and hotel for the whole week and decided to go for a few extra days.  I wanted to try out the whole Bohemian writer thing of buggering off to some cheap hotel somewhere with no distractions to blast some words out.

Some notes on that.  When looking for a cheap hotel, try not to go too cheap.  Make sure you get a room with something resembling a desk, or failing that, at least a downstairs bar you can hang out in.  Mine had a bed, en-suite and a thin strip of hallway.

Oh well, despite this I managed to get about three decent days of writing in.  The goal was to get an old project moving again, which is now moving again, but - like "Night of the Nude Succubus Orgy" - is probably going to end up far longer than I intended.  I should have learned with these multiple-succubi story by now - they always demand their own intricate scene, each!

I'm not going to say much more on it, given how poorly I managed expectations last year.  I have a target in mind for it, and if I hit it, I'll let you know then.

I was also in Prague for... ahem... research purposes.




A few years ago I got dragged into one of the strip clubs off the main tourist street.  I'm not really a strip club person - it's like a steakhouse where you only get to sniff the steak as far as I'm concerned - and the ones in that part of Prague have terrible reputations as tourist traps.  So there we were, supping over-priced pints of beer, and then the lady above comes out with full devil-horn regalia and does some rather questionable things to a nun onstage.  It was a little unexpected.  I wasn't expecting to see a full burlesque-type sex show at a place like that.  It was... dare I say it... weirdly classy.

The new show is a bit more straight to the point (or straight to the fist).  Goldfingers itself was a pleasant surprise.  It knows what it is, but is very professional about it.  One little detail I noticed was when a nervous bespectacled guy botched the process of tipping a dancer.  You're supposed to lie on the stage with the note (a custom one of the club's, I believe) in your mouth.  The dancer then straddles the tipper for a mini-lap dance before taking the note.  The bespectacled guy tried waving his note around aimlessly from the side of the stage.  Now, if you're dealing with the stereotypical seedy strip club, the dancer snatches it off him with a bored expression and wanders off back stage.  In this case the dancer got him to lie down and do it properly.  It was very much - "You will lie down here right now while I rub my boobies in your face."  I did like to see that.

The night's highlight was when Succuba and a friend with a gorgeous tattooed body dragged someone up on stage for what I imagine is the typical stag package.  Down came the trousers and out came a belt.  His mates got him pretty good.

Now, while I'm more of an eat-the-steak rather than sniff-the-steak guy, that was something I did feel tempted to hand some cash over for.  (I should probably use it as an incentive to get Succubus Summoning 301 written so I can get around to putting the royalties to degenerate purposes! :) )

Despite all this, I'd recommend visiting only when the club is busy.  The girls aren't that pushy, but if the club is quiet enough for them to outnumber the dudes, you will start to feel overwhelmed.

Obviously, there is a lot more to Prague.  It's a beautiful city.  But to be honest, I like trawling the seedier sides (even in this case when they're surprisingly professional) to places and wallowing in a bit of sin.  It helps me create more authentic backdrops to stories.  I did get a decent idea for a novel while I was out there - a succubus-run strip club/brothel in one of the classic old buildings, on the wrong night at the wrong time.  Sort of like Dusk till Dawn, but with a fuck-load more fucking.

Unfortunately, walking around at midnight in near-freezing rain had predictable consequences.  My plan to get home and immediately hit the writing desk was scuppered by the nasty flu bug/virus thing I had the misfortune to bring back with me.  Last couple of days I've been confined to bed and snotting up more slime than The Alien.

Other than that, a pretty good trip to recharge the batteries.  Probably what was needed, to be honest (aside from the flu bug thingy - that can fuck right off).

Wednesday, January 02, 2019

Ebook plans for 2019

After all the recent negativity over Patreon being a bunch of Orwellian cunts, here's me trying to be positive with plans for 2019.

2018 (and 2017) were a little weird.  In terms of word count I'm still producing a decent amount of content.  In total word count, "Escape Volumpula, the Pink Jelly" was about the same size as a large novella and "Escape the Arachne" wasn't much shorter.  The main problem with them is they're not something I can easily monetise on Amazon.  Patreon was a good fit... until they decided to shit the bed.  "Night of the Nude Succubus Orgy" was also very lengthy.  That I think could be expanded into a full novel.

The instability at Patreon has forced me to reassess priorities. Ebook royalties are a reliable portion of my income. It's been a while (2 years) since I've put any out and I want to rectify that in 2019.  This doesn't mean I'll be abandoning the CYOAs.  Given how chaotic my writing process is, there will no doubt be times when I want to tinker with game mechanics and programming rather than working on whatever ebook I'm supposed to be working on!

Here are some candidates to get done in 2019.  I'll probably expand them out into full posts later to discuss in more detail.

A new A Succubus for collection
While I haven't been as active on Literotica as I would like, I do now seem to have accumulated close to enough material for a new collection.  I don't have my stockpile of stories to use as collection (or even Patreon) exclusives.  About 4 or 5 brand new ones should be enough to finish a collection.

Succubus Summoning 301
This is probably the thing I need most to stabilise my royalty income.  While I am terrified of fucking it up, I think I might just sit down and let the story go where it wants to go rather than obsessing about not wanting to let people down.  (Please don't kill him, Rosa and co.  I have bills to pay!)

These two are my highest priority.  The collection because it's easy.  Succubus Summoning 301 because it's long overdue.

Tales from H-space
I've been trying to figure out what to do with the bestiary shorts for a while.  I think they could make a nice themed short story collection, possibly a regular ongoing series.  It would require rewriting and expanding the better ones into "proper" short stories as I don't think they are high enough quality in their current state (and I never really felt I got the accompanying "monster manual" file entries right).

This could be an easy win.  Or the rewrite process could be nightmarish.  The concept as a slightly more grimdark version of the Monster Girl Encyclopaedia was always a good one.

Sandwiched by
I've given up trying to chase my tail on hitting a regular monthly schedule with these novellas.  I want to relaunch them with new covers.  I think the best way to do that is to stealthily write them all in advance, then release them on a monthly basis over a year.  Another stealth project I'll keep quiet on until the whole thing is done and ready to release.

Okasare Kenny
Similar to Sandwiched by.  This is perfect as a novella serial released monthly over a year.  I already know I can't chase my tail in terms of deadlines, so the best thing would be to write it all out in advance.

Both have been screwed up by me in the past through a twitchy desire to rush something—anything—out.  I want to get away from that mentality and just focus on getting the proper groundwork done to be able to release them as I originally intended.

Then some speculative projects.  I'm not going to force myself to work on set things given that it made a mess of my productivity last year.  These will jump up and down my priority queue depending on how burning hot the desire to work on them is.

Night of the Nude Succubus Orgy
I think the short story could be expanded into a full novel.  It would likely be a strange mix of nasty period horror (the initial sacrifices and rituals) mixed with modern-day pornfest.  Could work.  Maybe…?

The Succubus Trap
The Nicole novel.  The first couple of chapters are really hot (Nicole and Madam Voluptula tag-teaming to fuck someone's brains out) and I think it would do really well as a novel, which makes my inability to get beyond chapter 3 incredibly frustrating.  Maybe I'll finally figure out how to bust through that block.

The Succubus Invasion
Another one I've already written multiple chapters for, but haven't quite got it to click.  It's also a strange mix of nasty sexual horror and goofy pornfest moments.

Jackson in HRPG-World
Less a novel than 8 short stories set in game-parody worlds.  I wrote the first four, hit a wall on the fifth and it's been stuck in development hell ever since.  Given I have nearly half the material written already, I should really focus on getting this done and published.

Then the really speculative stuff.  I don't think I'll get to these, but I might suddenly get a burning desire to work on them and I want to try and raise my productivity by letting enthusiasm dictate what projects to work on rather than trying to brute force specific ones.

Bubblelicious
Themed collection set around a soapland-style massage parlour.  Stemmed from a single short story idea.  This one is probably super-speculative,

Invading the Hive
A H-space novel, themed collection?  The bee girl entry for the H-space monster girl bestiary ended up getting a little long and complex.  I think it will likely be seven or so elaborate sex scenes featuring bee/wasp monster girls stitched together with some kind of underlying plot.  I've had a similar idea for a slime girl cave kicking around for years.  Maybe another series prospect?

There are others, but they're either far from ready or been left on hiatus long enough to require a degree of archaeology to dig up.  I might post them as glimpses into my ideas file for patrons.

My plan is to try and be more flexible in 2019.  Trying to force things out backfired far too often in 2018.  I'd rather have a 10-hour day working on some of the speculative stuff, than limping to a 2-hour day trying to brute force a more "important" project.

Anyway, that's a glimpse of my current ebook project plans.  Let's hope 2019 will be a lovely year filled with sexy succubus smut!

-manyeyedhydra