Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts

Saturday, March 02, 2019

Some Quick Notes on Patreon vs Blog/Literotica

Seen a few concerns about me paywalling everything behind Patreon and whether I'm going to post stories on Literotica again.  I thought I'd address them here.

I'm always conscious of a need to give people something in return for their hard-earned money, so I want to produce at least one thing (short story, CYOA scenario) for patrons every month.  I should stress these are temporary exclusives.  The two CYOAs I've done were later posted to the internet.  The short stories will find their way into later ebook short story collections.

Anything past that first item is open to be either posted to Literotica or held back as an ebook collection exclusive (I do like to have a few of these to entice people into buying the books).

This would work better if my productivity wasn't quite so painfully slow at the moment.  I'm aware of it and trying my best to fix it.

So, no, I've not quit Literotica or posting stories for people to read for free.  I just need to shake off this annoying pernickity perfectionism that's crept into my writing process and get back to being a carefree pulp writer of succubus smut again.

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).

Friday, November 30, 2018

A belated November update

Apologies for the belated update.  I've had some dental work done which has knocked me about a bit (having bits of metal screwed into your skull will do that!).

So, what has Hydra been up to?

As part of my commitment to patrons, I've been looking at posting story ideas from my ideas file and behind-the-scenes looks at some of my stories.  I wanted to do a piece on H-space, but I wasn't really happy with how that piece was turning out.  Mostly, I was unhappy with how long it was taking.  When I'm in slow, scratchy periods of writing, pieces like that sometimes eat up far too much of the day.  That's time that should be spent writing fiction or creating CYOAs.

(This is the reason I stopped writing the more general blog posts on other subjects – I'm not very quick at writing them and it's time that should be spent writing more useful things.)

I don't want to stop writing those pieces, or the game reviews, walkthrough etc.  Currently I'm experimenting with zoning off bits of the day so I can write these bits'n'bobs without suddenly looking up and realising I've wasted most of the day dicking about on some less-important paragraphs when I could have been bashing out another short story/chapter.

I'll come back to the H-space behind-scenes-stuff article at a later date.  I've been trying to think about what to do with the H-space bestiary.  I think I can make a good collection (or collections) with the material I have, but I think the current stories need a little more fleshing out before I'd be comfortable publishing them (and others) as an ebook.

In the meantime, I've set aside an hour a day.  I'll use it for the more general posts to keep both the manyeyedhydra blog ticking over with new content as well as give some nice behind-scenes insights for patrons.

(Although, for the next week it's mostly going to be needed for filing my tax returns.  Blegh.)

As for actual writing.  That was a little spotty about the time of having dental work, but is moving quite rapidly again.  The first draft of the boob monster girl story is pretty much done and I'm about 2K words into typing it up.  I'm hoping to have that done in the next couple of days.  It will be a patreon exclusive, I'm afraid, but only a temporary one.  I'm getting close to enough material for another ebook, and it will be included in the next collection.

I put the CYOA on the backburner a little while I was focused on getting the boob monster girl sort story written.  That should jump back to the forefront now the first draft of said boob monster girl story is done.  I'm targeting end December/early January for that, although it might slip depending on how difficult the central mechanic proves to implement in Twine.

And that's that for this week.  I'm still looking to find the right day for these update posts, so expect them to slide around a little until I find a slot that fits.

-manyeyedhydra

Friday, February 09, 2018

Update on Valentine's Day story

As you may have already noticed, I did not make the deadline of the 6th.

:(

Still some productivity and deadline issues at my end.  Things I'm trying to work through.

Unlike last year (where this happened for both Literotica's Nude Day and Halloween contests), I'm going to carry on working on this story until it's done.  Ironically, the moment I realised I wasn't going to make the deadline was the moment I unlocked to get back to work on it again.  Ideally I'll have it finished by Valentine's Day, but given my current complete lack of reliability I'm not making any promises.

Patreon is obviously off the table for the moment.  I'm not going to ask for people's money until I'm confident I've resolved my current issues.

The plan is still to write myself back into form with short stories on Literotica.  That was what worked for Succubus Summoning 101 and 201.

Apologies and thanks for your patience and understanding.

Friday, February 02, 2018

Slight pause on Monmusu Quest series

I'm coming up to the deadline for Literotica's Valentine's Day competition.  I think I've got a sweet succubus story, but it's a little longer than I anticipated (four succubi, they all want their time in the limelight!).  So I'll be throwing everything at it to try and get it finished by the 6th.

I'll get back to regular posting as soon as the story is done.

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

More Patreon Thoughts

Many thanks for the feedback and comments on my first post about this.  From them I gleaned a few things.

One, people are happy to ship a $1/month to support my writing.  That is reassuring.

The other is that this would be for my fiction writing.  The game reviews, walkthroughs, etc I post on the blog here are nice distractions, but not what people want to be funding via a Patreon.  This is also good to know.

If I hadn't checked first I suspect my Patreon page might have ended up an unholy kludge of talking about blogs, monster girl bestiaries, Japanese hentai games, half-baked game ideas, oh and did you know I sometimes write succubus porn.

Now I know it should be:

"Give me money to write erotic horror fiction featuring sexy succubi and monster girls.  I'm really good at it.  Here's my Literotica page so you can see."

The next point concerns when to go live.

I was originally planning to have the Patreon page up and running by now.  I had a rethink after seeing the excitement in some posts and also some justifiable concern in others (as I've not exactly been the most prolific on the new story front of late).  I don't want to hype things up, get people subbing, and then have that turn bad if the fifth or sixth story in a row I'm working on falls apart before I finish it and I have nothing to show for it by the middle of March.

I want to do this right.

So this is the plan.  I have two short stories on the go at the moment.  When I've finished both of them, I'll open up the Patreon.  I'm aiming to post one to Literotica's usual annual Valentine's Day contest.  The other will be a Patreon-exclusive.  This is so that when I launch, I will be launching with something.  It's also an incentive for me to stop dicking around and finish the stories I'm working on.

That's the plan for launch.  Next, for going forward.

I want to get back on Literotica (and similar sites) this year.  Last year I went for the big novel plans, failed and knocked my confidence a little, so I think a spot of rebuilding on Lit might do me some good.  And who knows, might even result in that long-awaited "Succubus Summoning 301" chapter finally getting posted.

This means taking a look at the other things I have running.

The H-space monster girl bestiary has drifted a little from its original purpose.  Initially it was supposed to be somewhere for me to park monster girl/sex scene ideas until I had a full story to put them in.  With the last few I found the opposite to be happening.  The idea started to expand into a full story in the process of writing it.  Rather than fighting this, as I was stupidly doing for most of last year, I'm going to write these out as full-length H-space stories like the ones I used to write in the past (like this, or this).

The playthrough series of Monmusu Quest: Paradox I'm currently in the middle of has proven to be more contentious than I realised.  I know some people like it from the comments, but I also know some people don't like it because they think it's taken over my fiction writing.  To be honest, me not posting any new stories for ages because there's seven or eight of them rotting half-finished in various notebooks has not helped dissuade this perception.  So my fault there.  I don't want to abandon the series halfway through because I don't think that's fair to the people currently enjoying it.  However, as part of these Patreon discussions, this would be a good point to consider what to move on to next.

One thing the series has been good for is getting me in the habit of keeping to a regular schedule.  (Yes, I broke it today for this, I know.  Writing this post was way more of an ass than I realised - I was supposed to post it yesterday for starters.)  The series even kept going unscathed during a 100-hour playthough of Persona 5, which is impressive considering my bad habit of occasionally going completely AWOL for a couple of weeks at a time on computer RPGs.  Now, if I can transfer this good habit of posting 750-1K words every Mon, Wed and Fri over to posting an original fiction series, we might be onto something.

Yes, I did try this last time with Okasare Kenny, and it didn't work out too well.  The difference there was I was trying to keep to a much more gruelling daily schedule with an idea I knew I should have kept to its original form of a series of novellas.

I think I should be able to keep to 1k word chunks every Mon, Wed and Fri without it swallowing up all my writing time and this would be something that would fit very well to the Patreon model.

So here's the feedback part.  I have a couple of ideas and - as part of a post where I'm looking to grab some Patreon bux - I thought it might be a good idea to toss them out there to see what people think.

1) Ongoing series - [4 (or more) Guys in MGQ-world]

Not MGQ world exactly (I don't write fan fiction), but a similar fantasy setting filled with sexy monster girls that are more interested in fucking the characters than fighting them.  The characters would likely be from our world (similar to the Jackson in HRPG-world stories I wrote a few years ago).  I imagine the mood will be pretty swingy on this one - goofy to start, but very dark in places, especially with the more vore-themed monster girls, but not as grimdark as say H-space.  I've been itching to go full horror-head on an MGQ-style setting for a while, and this might give me an excuse.

The advantages: I'm following on from the game playthrough series with an original fiction series in a similar setting (likely written in a similar style to what I use in the playthrough).  This should hopefully appeal to both the people that like the MGQ playthrough and people wanting original fiction with graphic sex scenes.  I also won't give a shit about quality.  This shouldn't sound like an advantage, but with me - who is way too nitpicky with his own writing - it might free me up to splurge thousands of words of fun adventure and sex on the page without obsessing over how "good" it is and locking up in the process.  Also, gamers in a fantasy world requires zilch in the way of research, removing another barrier to just having fun writing.

This is my preferred option, mainly because while thinking it up I came up with a few "meta" ideas for audience participation that would work very well with Patreon.

On the other hand, it is more MGQ-type stuff, which people might be sick of at this point.

2) Succubus Summoning

This is the option I think most people would want - me continuing Phil's adventures in bite-size chunks here on the blog.

The advantage here is obvious.  Those bite-sized chunks quickly become full chapters and then, before you know it, a full novel.  Plus, people have really really been wanting me to write this for a long time.

I think it also has the biggest danger of failing or falling behind schedule, because I do give a damn about this story and want it to be the best it can.

That said, one of my biggest problems is being nitpicky and obsessing over making a story the best it can.  Trying to hit 3 1K-word deadlines a week, every week might bust me out of that, or wreck me.  Not sure.  The thought of trying to make the series work under those conditions does scare the hell out of me, but maybe that's what I need right now.

High risk, but potentially very high reward.

3) Barry Lyle Goes Out In Fucking Style

You probably don't have a clue what this is.  It's the book I was trying to write in the first half of 2017.  An overwhelming army of succubi invade a city on earth.  Barry Lyle is a student at university when the sky turns black with demons.  After hiding for a while, he realises he has no chance of surviving and throws himself at a group of seven succubi in the knowledge that at least he'll die having his brains fucked out.  The problem: all 7 succubi saw him at the same time and succubi don't fight over food.  Barry is going to have to make a choice and the 7 succubi couldn't possibly let him make that choice without letting Barry have a taste of what they have to offer first...

This is an easy option for me.  The first quarter is mostly written, so I probably have about 3 or 4 weeks worth of updates without even having to do anything.

I don't know how strong the overall idea is.  The mood is all over the place on this one.  The setup is clearly comical, but in order to make Barry's decision to take the suicide-by-succubus option plausible, I had to show him what the other non-succubus demons were doing to the students they caught.  Those scenes... are not comical.

4) Various Mini-Series

Another easy option.  No big series, just various little ones.  I've done this before with the Jackson stories.  The reason you haven't seen the bee girl H-space story was because as I was writing it I thought this might make an interesting little mini-series about a team of soldiers trying to burn down a bee girl hive and eventually being overwhelmed sexily by various bee girl types.

This would make a decent filler option for those times when I need to take a breather on a longer ongoing series.

Those are some thoughts.  I estimate I'm about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way through the MQ:P series (which will return Friday as normal).  I think it will be another month or so before that winds up.  This gives me some time to get a follow-up series prepped and ready.  (If I decide to go with Succubus Summoning, having the whole first chapter done would be a must before I'd even consider running it.)

Whew, this post was a real ass to write.  Let me know what you think in the comments.

Now, time to get back to that succubus Valentine's Day story.  (You are not fucking stalling out on me this time!)

Sunday, January 07, 2018

Patreon Thoughts

Last year wasn't the best for me writing-wise, so I've been looking and thinking of ways to change things up this year.

Starting up a Patreon is something I've ummed and ahhed over for some time.

On the one hand, it's been around for a couple of years now and is pretty much proven as a good funding tool for creators.

On the other hand there's always that faint whiff of e-begging to it, of people seeking handouts rather than trying to produce work people want to buy.

I think the latter probably says more about my own stupid pride and upbringing, rather than being an accurate reflection on reality.  A lot of authors (and other creator-types) use Patreon nowadays and there isn't anything wrong with that.

(Although I do get a spot of the side-eye when I see an award-winning author announce their work is being made into a TV series one minute, while begging for rent money on Patreon the next.  But, to be fair, I don't know other people's circumstances, and if their fans are happy to hand over money, maximum power to all concerned.)

Anyway, this is what would I'd be looking to use Patreon funding for.

1) Smooth out my income.

I'm fortunate in that I made some good decisions in the past and got into the habit of living very frugally.  I don't make a lot of money from royalties, but between that, the occasional bit of supplementary income, and living damn frugally, I'm just about able to cover most of my living expenses.  That said, the income is not exactly consistent and varies from month to month (well, quarter to quarter).  Having an alternate revenue stream to fill in the gaps for those months when sales are low wouldn't be a bad thing.

2) Get payment for things that are otherwise difficult to monetize.

I'm talking about stories/series posted to Literotica* and other places, the H-space monster girl bestiary shorts, and - to a lesser extent - the humorous walkthroughs of monster girl hentai games** like I'm doing at the moment with Monmusu Quest: Paradox [part 2].  Having a Patreon for this type of stuff frees me from fretting over whether I should be doing work that pays bills/puts food on the table instead.

I notice a few regular writers on Literotica have their own Patreon accounts.  It doesn't seem a bad idea to be honest.  If I'd started up writing later, I probably would have had less reticence and got on Patreon earlier.

*As some have noticed, I haven't been as active on Literotica recently.  I'd like to fix that this year.

**This is more a sort of hobby, but I'm not going to turn it down if people enjoy the series enough to throw a couple of dollars my way.

3) A psychological trick to make me think I have a boss(es) and get that writing productivity back up again.

Because I know I'm my own boss, I have a bad habit of being a little too flexible on the hours I work.  It happens.  I'm writing.  The current section I'm on is proving tricky, so I think I'll take a breather, go play Playstation or something for an hour, then come back to it afterwards (SPOILER: Did not come back to it after an hour).

It's a little thing, but knowing people are giving me money every month to create new sexy succubus smut might trick my lazy ass into thinking I should stay at my desk and treat this as a proper job rather than a glorified hobby.  A more productive me means more hot succubus smut for people to enjoy.

4) A fund for commissioning art and other things.

Now this is where I'm most likely to use any Patreon money.  I've enjoyed seeing my characters brought to life by VezoniaArtz, RaidouZERO and others, and it's given me ideas to take projects further.  I'd like to push my succubi/monster girls and worlds to get the same kind of attention as KC's Monster Girl Encyclopedia, Okayado's Monster Musume or Toro Toro Resistance's Monster Girl Quest.  The thing is, the internet is primarily a visual medium.  Pictures get far more attention than plain text.

I'd like to commission artwork of the various succubi/monster girls in the H-space bestiary (and my other stories).  The internet always needs more sexy succubus/monster girl artwork as far as I'm concerned.

I'd like to reorganise my website so the H-space stories, H-game walkthroughs, etc are easily navigable rather than being buried in my blog post history.

These things require money (artists are creators and like to be paid too).  A Patreon fund might help out a lot here.  Also, it would make me feel like I was using the money to create something people would want rather than "Can uze pay my rent, plz".

* * *

That's what I'd get out of it, the more important question is what you people out there think about it.  Which is why I'm putting this out here first.

Do you think the stories I write and this blog are entertaining enough that you'd be willing to chuck a spare quid/buck my way every month, so I'd have the financial security to continue doing it?  (Or in this case fund a war chest I can use to flood the internet with more perverted monster girl artwork, hyuk hyuk.)

This would likely be the baseline Patreon reward band - $1/month for me to keep the blog running and post regular stories/chapters to the internet (here, Literotica, etc).

I did think of using the other Patreon option of $1/story or chapter, but it doesn't really fit with one of the central aims of keeping this blog going.  Also, it would require some thought on what constitutes a proper story/chapter, whereas I'd rather have them be the length that feels right for the respective story/chapter.

1$ a month (or more, if you're feeling generous.  I'm not about to say no!) should make it a more predictable outgoing.  It should also keep me honest.  If you feel I'm slacking off, just withdraw your funding.  I'll figure out quick enough. :D

Looking at other Patreons, I notice they also offer other bands/tiers of rewards.  This is where I'd welcome some input from you all out there.  What can I offer that would be of interest?

Some thoughts:

1) Exclusivity.

I don't want to lock any of my work off behind paywalls so only a very narrow audience can access it.  That will impose restrictions on where I can use the stories in the future and will probably end up biting me in the ass.  What I can do, is timed exclusives - maybe make the new stories/chapters available to Patreons a few days before they're due to go live on the rest of the internet.

Also, I usually hold back some stories as exclusives for my ebook collections.  In future I can make some of those available to Patreons.

2) Behind the scenes stuff.

Thoughts on how a story came together.  Ideas in the pipeline.  Early versions.  I'm not sure what might be of interest here, so let me know in the comments.

3) Polls.

I'm normally so scattershot this might help me.  These would be of the type - "Here are three ideas, what should I write this week?"

(That would certainly be one way to force me to get back to Phil's adventures... :) )

As I'm also planning to use a lot of the cash to fund art commissions, this is certainly poll-able.  Which H-space monster girl would we like drawn next and by who?  That might be fun.

4) Tuckerizations.

Get yourself inserted into one of my stories so you too can be killed off in a horribly gruesome sexy manner by your favourite succubus/monster girl.

This seems a decent possibility for a high-tier reward.

There will be some caveats for my own sanity.  I won't be inserting people into the story.  It'll likely just be names and descriptions hung over another character.  This gives me some flexibility if the story calls for the character to be an asshole or die in a particularly unpleasant fashion.

Those are some ideas anyway.

If you have any other suggestions for things you'd be interested in as Patreon rewards, please let me know below.

This also includes if you think this is a terrible idea and I'm being greedy arse.  That's probably worth finding out now rather than being traumatized six months later when my Patreon is only bringing in $6 a month! :D

At the moment I'm throwing it out there to test the waters.  If people are fine with it and would like to fund my various perverted endeavors, I'll see if I can get an account set up next week.

Let me know what you think.

Thursday, September 14, 2017

Update-ry Stuff

No Monmusu Conquered World Text Play updates this week.  Other stuff came up and I managed to fall behind.

Also, having got much deeper into the game, I'm starting to understand some of the criticisms people posted when I first talked about the game.  It does get repetitive and the lacks the pay-off of either Violated Hero 2's later Bad Ends or VH5's reasonably interesting storyline.  It does have a nice range of monster girls and I think most of the animated sex scene snippets work pretty well, but like a lot of Dieselmine games, all the good stuff never quite comes together to form a truly good game.

This is especially noticeable now I've got around to playing Monmusu Quest: Paradox again (more on this later).

I did think briefly about knocking the series on its head, but I'm not far from the end, so I'll post the last remaining segments next week.  In future I think I'll avoid doing games where I have no machine translation and stick to ones where the story is a little more interesting or where some element of walkthrough/guide might be useful.

Which brings me back to Monmusu Quest: Paradox.  I did write a massive series on the first part that was a lot of fun.  I didn't think I'd be able to do the same for the second because of the problems of running text-hooking software on Windows 10.  I have found a fix for that, or rather some software that does work, so I'm thinking a Text Play of Monmusu Quest: Paradox part 2 might be back on, providing I find a schedule that doesn't devour all the time I should be spending writing.

So yep, been replaying Monmusu Quest: Paradox a fair bit over the last week or so.  The Dargoth translations really improve the playing experience.  Dargoth and co. didn't complete a full 100% translation of part one before part two came out, but they seem to have followed a sensible priority list of names/items -> main plot -> H-scenes.  I'm nearly done with a replay of part 1 (Just Gnome and 3rd Tartarus to go) and it's been mostly English all the way.  If you're looking for English translations of a fave monster girl's H-scene, you might be disappointed (especially if she shows up later in the game), but the main plot seems fully translated from what I've seen so far.

So, there's a decent chance I might launch straight into a Monmusu Quest: Paradox part 2 series right after finishing up with Monmusu Conquered World.

As for my own personal writing, that's rather chaotic at the moment.  As usual I have too many projects on the go simultaneously, but at least some of them are approaching completion.  Here's the full list for people that might be interested:

H-Space Monster Girl Bestiary

I have one on the way and another batch of ideas to write.  I'm still suffering with a bloat problem on story length.  At 2.5K words they're not quite long enough to be what I'd consider a quality short story, but are taking up more time to write than the original purpose of sex scenes I flesh out into full stories at a later date.  I'm conscious of the fact I'm unlikely to put out a new novel this year.  I'm also conscious of the fact I put out the equivalent of an average novel's word count in H-space stories/profiles that I don't really know what to do with.

Priorities - not one of my strong points. :)

I'll keep adding to them when I get a chance anyway.  The setting is a little too hostile to human life at the moment, but I have a few ideas to fix this and make it a little more interesting.

Short Stories.

A H-space piece that builds up the lore a bit.  I'm about halfway through this one and I think people will like it.  I have it penciled in for Lit's Halloween contest.

Nude Day piece.  This one was penciled in for Lit's been-and-gone Nude Day contest.  A trio of lads, a derelict mansion, a lot (and I mean a lot!) of succubi in the basement.  Intro and first 3rd is done.  One of the characters needs a tweak to be less annoying/abrasive.

Novellas/Sandwiched by

"Sandwiched by Smoke".  This one's been crawling to completion for a while.  I keep coming back to it to add a few more pages.  It's inspired by '60/'70s spy serials like The Avengers and The Prisoner and should be a little more zanier than the ickier "Sandwiched by Stomachs".

Sandwiched by Slugs.  This was going to be a H-space Monster Girl Bestiary short.  I liked the setup and +1 slug girl gives me the sexy slimy sandwich to make it part of the Sandwiched by series.  (yes, it'll probably be icky).

Novels

Nicole standalone.  This was going to be the novel I wrote in between SS201 and SS301.  First two chapters are done.  I have a rough idea of the full plot and how it ties a bunch of my short stories together.  Then chapter 3 hit a roadblock, so it's sitting on the backburner until I get a chance to come back to it.

Succubus Invasion/Barry Lyle.  The backup novel I was going to write between SS201 and SS301 for the first half of this year.  Chaos writing screwed up here and I kept bouncing myself off the project to do other things (Sandwiched by, H-space Bestiary) instead of blasting this out while the ideas were hot.  I thought this was going to be parked on the backburner after I failed to finish it in the first half of 2017, but the words have started flowing again in the past couple of days (which is partly why you're getting this post and not Monmusu Conquered World Text Play part 18).  If I suddenly go very quiet in Oct/Nov it'll be because I've decided to stop jerking around and finally hammer this out.

That or:

Succubus Summoning 301.

Unsurprisingly, this is the one I get asked the most about, and the one that should be my greatest priority if I didn't have a very bad habit of my productivity being inversely proportional to the amount of pressure I put on myself to write something.  I know I'm way slower than I should be, but I also know I won't (can't) shove out of a bunch of rubbish to cash in on the popularity of the first two books.

If I hadn't finished in-between standalone novel by the 2nd half of 2017, the plan was to move on to SS301.  This is broadly in place dependent on where chaos writing takes me.  My productivity is so sketchy at the moment I'll settle for writing 10 pages on something random than trying to force a slow half-page out on whatever I think I should be writing.

This probably isn't what people want to hear, but the more I try and push myself, the more my feet dig in on things like this.  It'll come when the chapter is ready to come bursting out of my skull (which I don't think will be much longer - Rosa is very keen to go wild after I made a joke of her not getting any in SS201).

This is currently where I'm at.  Obviously, I'd prefer to have completed 1 novella + 75% of a novel, rather than 10-50% of about seven different projects, but that's how it is.

Saturday, October 29, 2016

So, What Happened to October?

Those that have been following me for a while know by now I have an unnerving ability to fade out from time to time, with ideas not exactly reaching fruition...

There was a pile up of other work and responsibilities that ended up scuppering my plans for Literotica's Halloween Contest.  I couldn't clear it in time, so no story from me this year, sadly.  I think the idea I have for the contest period is pretty good, though, so I'm planning to run it next year, but with better advance planning to clear everything else off my table a couple of weeks before the contest starts.

The H-space Monster Girl Bestiary is going to be cut back slightly.  Trying to hit the weekly schedule was devouring all my writing time and giving me a false sense of accomplishment.  At the moment I've set aside one day a week to work on them.  I didn't get one finished for this week, but with a bit of luck it should be done for next week.

There will be a print version for Succubus Summoning 201.  The coverflat came in from the artist this week, but there were some issues on file size.  I'm looking to fix those over the weekend and I'll post here as soon as the print version goes live on Amazon.  Unfortunately, it will still be Print on Demand, and those are a little pricey compared to the usual mass-market paperbacks.

The big news is now that I've finally completed Succubus Summoning 201 and cleared my table of the other distractions (filing taxes etc), I'm finally able to start work on a novel idea I've been wanting to write for the past year or so.  I want to get the bulk of that done before the end of the year, so if the blog here goes a little quiet for a while, it's because there's a big juicy full-length novel on the way.

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

So What Now For Many-Eyed Hydra?

Succubus Summoning 201 is finally done, dusted, and out for you all to buy (aside from the print version, but I'm just waiting on the artist for the full coverflat of that).  That's a great weight off my shoulders.  While it was in an unfinished state I was in an awkward situation of wanting to move onto other ideas, but feeling like I couldn't because the arc was still incomplete.

So what now?

Here's a list of various things I'm planning on getting stuck into over the next few months/year.

First up I want to get the H-space Monster Girl Bestiary back to its regular weekly slot.  There will be a few slight changes.  The last few entries had started to creep up to 2K+ mini-stories, which wasn't the original purpose.  I'm planning to spend the next week or so writing up the various ideas that have accumulated in my notebook so I have a nice surplus to post weekly while working on other stuff.

Literotica's Halloween Contest is on the way.  Last year I wanted to enter as many short stories as I could and ended up with just two (although missing the deadline with "A Chance Glance..." likely resulted in it being a better story overall).  Writing the Nurse Honey story "Last Night of Freedom" under ridiculously tight time constraints for the A Night at McHooligans ebook taster showed me I could do it when sufficiently prodded.  I'm thinking of using the month around the contest as an experiment - a sort of coin-operated Hydra where some of the choices are made by the audience, i.e. you.  I doubt it will be fully interactive, more like a series of options decided by vote or first response, and then I have 2-3 days to get a 5K story based on those options entered into Lit's contest.  Possibly something like what Lunareth has done with their Queen of Butts series.  We might end up with 5-10 cool stories, or I might break down into a quivering heap after a week.  Who knows.  Might be fun.

More on that next week once I've had a think on the framing device and how to make it work.

After that silliness the next step is make the Sandwiched by series a thing again.  I got halfway through Sandwiched by Stomachs before it got knocked aside by more pressing concerns.

The reason why I want to make Sandwiched by work is because it was a test case for a proper serial with continuity - Okasare Kenny.  I always intended that to be an ebook novella series and then in a fit of madness tried to turn it into a daily serial on my blog right after doing the Let's Play of Monmusu Quest: Paradox.  That did not go so well as I predictably burnt out from the posting schedule after a couple of weeks and had to halt it.  I liked the original idea though - 13 monster girls, each in their own novella in a monthly serial spread out over a year.  Given what happened with Sandwiched by I don't think writing it month by month will work.  For that one I'll need most of it, likely at least the first 8 or 9 chapters, in the bank before I start publishing.

Another thing I want to write is a novel idea featuring Nicole.  This is something I've had plotted out in my head for a while.  I wrote an opening chapter a while back, but it was another of those ideas I felt too guilty to push further while the Succubus Summoning 201 arc was still unfinished.

Which leads us to Succubus Summoning 301.  Phil's adventures clearly aren't over yet, but after the way 201 dragged out, I know I need a short break to work on something completely different so I can clear my head and get enthusiastic about the series again.  This will likely be the book I move onto once the Nicole novel is done.

Anyway, this is a rough plan of what I think I'll be working on over the next year.  Of course, #ChaosWriting might throw me off in other directions, but I won't mind so long as those are productive directions.

Friday, May 20, 2016

Update

Not playing Doom.  :)

Would like to as it looks and sounds amazing, but I don't have a machine with the oompth to run it.

The reason I've skipped a couple of weeks is the writing brain temporarily threw a cog.  It happens.  Usually I operate on an Advancing Wall of Doom (okay, self-imposed deadlines) approach to keep me focused on getting serials and short stories out.  This normally works aside from those occasions when the Advancing Wall of Doom gets too close, I put too much pressure on myself and the writing part of my brain locks up.

Nothing serious.  Normally I take a week off for a breather and then the writing machine starts running smoothly again.

The next H-space bestiary story is nearly ready.  I was hoping to have it up this week, but it ran over 1.5K words (again!) and isn't quite finished.  It should be up next week and with a bit of luck I'll start hitting my targets again.

Monday, November 02, 2015

Literotica Halloween Contest Recap and Nov 2015 Update

The voting period for Literotica's Halloween Contest is over and they've announced the winners.  I didn't place, but to be honest I wasn't expecting to.  Both my entrants, "Snuff/Skin Flick" and "Chad's Challenge", are Bad End stories and generally it's the longer (sometimes very long!) stories with heart-warming endings that finish in the top 3.

One thing that did disappoint me was that I only managed to enter two stories.  The story I had originally planned to be a third entrant had an ending that was fine for a horror tale, but wouldn't work for erotica.  I had an alternate planned, but was not able to finish that in time.

Overall I liked the idea of using October as a short story challenge month.  November is normally the month for NaNoWriMo - where aspiring (and some grizzled!) writers attempt to blast out a 50K novel in a single month.  NaNoWriMo doesn't work for me as I write out all my first drafts longhand and it's not easy to keep track of the word count that way.  What I might do for future years is to instead use Literotica's Halloween Contest as a challenge to see how many short stories I can blast out in that three week period.  At least I've set a low bar there with only two entrants to beat!

Update time.

Currently I'm finishing off the two stories that didn't make the deadline.  One will likely end up being a mini-serial going out this month or next.  The other will be posted as soon as it's done.  There's a chance that one will kick up an online shitstorm, which might be fun. :D

"Sandwiched by Scyllas" is moving again.  I did the usual thing I do with stories that have derailed - start typing up the 2nd drafts early until I pick the thread back up again.

I want get these out of the way ASAP, so I can get on with the major task of finishing Succubus Summoning 201 and preparing it as an ebook to go out as soon as eXcessica has a spare slot.  I have some novel and novella ideas I'm keen to get on with, but I need to really get the second arc of that serial wrapped up satisfactorily first.  (This year would have likely been far more productive if I'd got those last two chapters finished this time last year!)

Monday, October 19, 2015

Writing Updates: Oct 19th, 2015

Somebody highlighted this on my twitter feed.


My first thought was:  Well, durr.  You people have become the Stop Having Fun people, and it's in the nature of youth to rebel against the Stop Having Fun people.

(@radicalbytes is the man behind Feminist Frequency, responsible for the Tropes vs. Women series on Youtube.)

In the past it was the religious morality brigade.  Nowadays it's authoritarian SJWs.  South Park has already lampooned it with PC Bros, it's only a matter of time before other comics lock the trope in.

This is nothing new.  The late 80s/early 90s saw a similar push for political correctness and trumpeted the arrival of the 'New Man' - in touch with his caring, sharing side.  By the mid 90s the New Man was soundly rejected by women as an unsexy wet drip and Political Correctness was buried beneath universal mockery.  This was the decade that saw the emergence of Lads' mags and Lad Culture in Britain.

The same cycle is repeating itself now.  Unfortunately, the viciousness of the more extreme fringe of activism is greater and more visible this time around because of social media.  And I think that means the resulting pushback will also be vicious.  My own personal opinion is that the average person is considerably less [foo]ist and [foo]phobic nowadays, but there's only so many times you can get hit in the head by a rock before you give in to the temptation to start throwing them back.  It's become a cottage industry (or, in some cases, a financially lucrative business) to throw a rock at a group, then scream harassment and seek sympathy when the riled-up group throws rocks back.

Where does that leave us?  Probably with a bunch of virulent anti-women misogynists when those 10 to 14-year-old boys, fed up of being constantly told they're the root of all evil, grow up.

And on that cheery note, it's time to get back to writing.

This week I'll be trying to finish off the two stories I have planned for the Literotica Halloween Contest.  It ended up not quite being the story bonanza I was hoping for.  Progress was a little too much on the stop/start side.  I suspect I might be going too long on my short stories (6-7K instead of 4-5K words) and not getting them finished fast enough.  I've noticed my productivity and enthusiasm for a story starts to wane once it drags past a certain number of days.  Getting an idea down in 2-3 days, while it's still fresh, is what I should be aiming for.

The second story features plenty of weirdness and dangerous snu snu.  That's typed up and should be posted in the next few days after I've finished editing it.

The third story references the #GamerGate controversy, so the response to that should be... interesting.  It also features an appearance of one of my regular characters.  Sort of.  I'm deep in the 1st draft for that one.  The closing date for the competition is the 22nd.  That might be tight, but I'll still post it even if I fail to make the deadline.

Originally I had another third story planned.  The first draft is nearly done on that one.  Horror-head and Erotica-head had a fight over the ending and Erotica-head rightly pointed out the original ending, as planned, would likely leave readers feeling like they'd been cheated out of some of the sexy stuff.  The story does have plenty of nice cliff-hanger moments, so I'll be running that here on the blog throughout November as a mini-serial.

Then it's back to getting the long-delayed "Sandwiched by Scyllas" ready for publication.  I'm hoping a break from banging my head against the wall trying to write the second half of that will get it flowing again.  Lots of tentacle goodness to come there. ;)

Breaking the Sandwiched by series out of the monthly cycle that wasn't doing me any good means I won't be immediately pressured to get the 5th done (currently pencilled in as the slightly voretastic "Sandwiched by Stomachs").  That means it will be time to do what people have been asking me for all year and bring Succubus Summoning 201 to a satisfying end.

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Pauses

Some things going on as you might have noticed by the lack of recent updates.

I was going to post in more detail about the events at the end of last year affecting me more than I first thought, leading to some poor decision making, but that would just be a whole load of boring personal crap and I don't want this blog to degenerate into a personal whinefest.  There are too many of those already on the internet.  I deal in sexy.  Whining about stuff is not sexy.

The upshot of it all is that in the first six months of attempting to be a professional (quasi)self-published author, I haven't been as professional as I would have liked.  A Succubus for Saint Patrick's Day still doesn't have a print version.  I still need to get a US ITIN.  The Succubus Summoning 201 arc still isn't finished.  The Sandwiched by series was supposed to be monthly and yet there's only been two releases in the past six months.  These are things I need to fix.

The rest of the post was going to be about putting Okasare Kenny on hiatus for six months - basically going back to the original plan of releasing it as a serial on Amazon with 99c instalments.  But that also struck me as unprofessional.  Being premature (oo er, double entendre) with the original posting was probably a misstep, but once it's done I should continue lurching along down that path (plus it can always be packaged up that way with nice artwork and smoother editing later).  I also hate the concept of starting a story in a free forum and then moving the ending behind a paywall.  It's a dickish thing for a writer to do, even when we're trying to put bread on the table.

Unfortunately I'm cursed with an aspect of personality that loves to engage in self-sabotage.  Some times it gets on top for a while and I'm stuck with being a useless cunt until I can beat that fucker back into the dank cage it belongs.

Give me a couple of days to get my head back in order and I'll get back to killing Kenny (over and over and over, hyuk hyuk).

Saturday, February 14, 2015

Update on "Sandwiched by Slime Girls"

I was hoping this would be a post announcing "Sandwiched by Slime Girls" is out.  Predictably, I'm running late again.

There's a couple of reasons for this.  The first is that I'm in the middle of buying a house in rainy old England.  This tends to throw up a lot of nuisance paperwork and errands that drag me away from the computer.  I'm also currently living on a mattress in my mother's front room while waiting for everything to go through.  Writing red-hot sexy-weird smut in this environment is a little awkward as you can imagine.  Once the house is done I'll have a personal office set up and start hitting proper 8-hour-a-day+ writing shifts.

The second is that the story wandered off the path a little in the middle.  I'm currently whacking it back into shape with the editing hammer.  Originally I was hoping to hit a regular date each month, so it's a little annoying to be already running behind.  Quality is always my primary concern though.  I'd rather put a good story out a week late than a bad story on time.

Wednesday, February 04, 2015

Writing Update Feb 2015

Because I’m getting queries on when the next Succubus Summoning chapter will be going up (it’s delayed again, sorry).

The original plan was to finish the Succubus Summoning 201 arc along with some extras for the ebook version in November/December.  This didn’t happen because of some substantial real life disruption.  Now that window is temporarily closed as I’m in a deadline crunch to get the next collection, A Succubus for St Patrick’s Day, finished in time for, well, St Patrick’s Day.  Once that’s done I’ll get back to Succubus Summoning and keep on it until the full 201 arc is finished.  #ChaosWriting is temporarily suspended while I force myself to be disciplined for a change.

Here are some progress reports to give everyone an idea of what’s on the way in 2015.


Sandwiched By

Committing to this seemed a much saner idea when I didn’t know December and November were going to vanish in a black hole.  Oh well, flying by the seat of my pants to maintain a monthly schedule is going to be fun.  I’m halfway through “Sandwiched by Slime Girls”.  The two girls in this one are proving to be very enthusiastic (a little too enthusiastic – they’re distracting me!), so it should be a fun read.  I’m also halfway through another Sandwiched by story that features a character inspired by one of Monster Girl Quest’s weirder monster girls.  It’s a bit voreish so I didn’t want to put it out too early in case I scared everyone away.  March and April are likely to be Scylla and Succubi.  We’ll see.  This is my challenge to me to bring out the speedy pulp writer after all.


A Succubus for St Patrick’s Day and other tales

This was the collection I originally intended to put out last year, but decided to postpone rather than rush it out with sloppy editing.  I wanted it done by the end of January but I suspect it will be mid-February as I still need to give three stories a thorough editing (plus the usual formatting and getting a cover together).  Expect to see teasers and excerpts in a couple of week’s time.  As with the last collection there will be six old stories, six brand new stories and one from an Excessica collection that might have been missed by a lot readers.


Succubus Summoning 201

Should have been finished in November if I hadn’t let such trifling concerns as losing my job and having to move country get to me.  Bah!  This is next in the queue after the editing on A Succubus for St Patrick’s Day is finished.  There are two chapters to come and both will be smallish in comparison to the previous chapters.  I’ll then do some chopping and changing to edit it into ebook form to go into the earliest available slot in Excessica’s release schedule.


With both of those projects out of the way I’ll be free to turn on #ChaosWriting again.  I tend to be much more productive when dealing with fresh ideas and both of the previous projects dragged on far longer than I’d have liked.  One of my aims this year is to really get my teeth into my ideas folder and get them written before they go stale.


A Night with Ceptophthorié

I definitely want to keep playing around with Twine and create some more interactive stories.  I had to put this on hold when I realised I was running behind on the other things.  When things get a little less hectic I’ll be running this alongside my more conventional writing projects.


Jackson in HRPG-World

This has been on hold for too long.  I have some ideas of future games to lampoon, so expect Jackson’s (mis)adventures to start up again later in the year.


And then we get into freer territory.  Other than the ton of short story outlines sitting in my ideas file I have these ideas for longer novellas and novels:

A novel featuring both Nicole and Madam Voluptula.  Also ties in with another short story of mine.  I’ve been wanting to write a novel-length work about Nicole for a while and I think the idea for this one will work.  I’m pretty sure this will become my main focus once Succubus Summoning 201 is out of the way.

Okasare Kenny.  A serial about a protagonist stuck in a Violated Hero-type game/world.  Me trying to out-ick Violated Hero while still keeping it sexy.

A novella with Amanda.  Originally it was a very strong short story idea that gave me an excuse to show off her dominatrix skills.  I think there’s enough in the story for it to go longer.

Slutdroppin’.  Four students play a practical joke on a drunk female student and end up in a weird dimension where something is tracking them.  More of a horror story – for the people that prefer my nastier Bad Ends.

Porno Fighters from Planet Earth.  Another lengthier piece I started a while back.  Has a great manga-esque plot.  Still not sure on the pacing.  Might end up a trilogy of short novels.

A short novel about a soapland run by succubi.  Been wanting to write this a while, but it involves some complex mythology/riddles alongside the usual sexy bits.

Succubus Summoning 301.  Phil’s adventures aren’t done yet.  201 was supposed to be set more in Wargsnouts, but ended up drifting back to the succubi’s castle.  301 might be based more on Earth.  I’m still thinking of what the overall plot arc will be.


The Nicole novel will likely be the first thing I tackle on the list (I’ve already written the first couple of chapters).  After that I’ll probably reorder depending on levels of interest, so let me know what takes your fancy in the comments below.

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Many-Eyed Hydra's 2014 (It wasn't the best . . .)

2014 kind of sucked for me personally.

I had to scrap plans to put out a new collection in March as it wasn’t ready and then ended up not putting out any new books at all for the entire year.  While I did keep the Succubus Summoning series moving, I still fell short of my plan to make it a stable, monthly serial.

On the real life front the second half of the year was especially disastrous.  I lost most of August to stomach flu from hell and then September delivered a bigger whammy as I lost the job I’d held for the last seven years.  This was especially whammy-ish as I’d been working abroad.  No job meant no work permit and no work permit meant I had to leave the place I’d been living for the past five years and move back to grey old Britain.  If you’d been wondering why my #DailyWriting updates had dried up over the past couple of months then here’s your answer (unsurprisingly, losing your job tends to be bad for the self esteem regardless of how much money they give you to fuck off).

Tacking back to more positive waters, I did manage to get a fair bit of writing done in 2014.  While updates to Succubus Summoning were typically sporadic, I did get four new chapters out (208, 209, 210, 211).  I’ll look to complete the current arc early 2015 with the collected eBook version following soon after.  In 2014 I also put four brand new short stories up on Literotica: “A Real-Life Goo Girl”, “Busted Bankster”, “The High-School Sweetheart Removal Agency” and “What Kevin Did Last Summer”.  These weren’t the only short stories I wrote.  Currently I have another eight short stories waiting on my hard drive for suitable collections to include them in.

On the blog I tried out something new with some detailed playthroughs of monster girl hentai games like Violated Hero.  They didn’t help too much with book sales, but they did boost traffic to the blog, were fun to do and people seemed to like them.  I’ll be doing more of them next year, but I’ll be a little choosier over the games I pick as the Let’s Plays do soak up time and effort that could be devoted to writing as I mentioned here.  If Monmusu Quest: Paradox comes out next year I will be covering that for certain.

On the subject of time that is one thing I will have considerably more of next year.  While losing a regular source of income sucks dogs’ diseased dicks, I was at least sent on my way with a reasonable severance package.  Or Many-Eyed Hydra’s writing grant for 2015 as we like to call it.  At the moment my projects file is currently brimming with ideas for short stories, serials and novels.  I’ve been itching to get at it before those ideas go stale.  Next year will give me an opportunity to hammer out a lot of new material.  I’ve also got some other monster girl/succubus ideas I want to try out.  If the year works out and I’m able to balance the finances, I’ll keep going.  If not I’ll dust off the CV, re-enter the job market and be thankful I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to try out something as crazy as this.

Anyway, let’s hope 2015 will be a blinder of a year filled with plentiful sexy succubus smut!

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Hydra's Inspiration - A Succubus for Valentine's Day (part 3)

This is a look behind the scenes at how the stories of my second collection, A Succubus for Valentine's Day, came to be.  The first part is here.


Venus of the Red Lights

I’ve visited Amsterdam a few times and De Wallatjes (better known as the main red light district) is an evocative location for a horror story.  In fact this idea is a leftover from my days when I tried to write “normal” horror.  Most of the non-supernatural elements of this story are based on firsthand experience or stories I’d heard.


The Soul Worm

I have no idea where the monster girl from this one came from.  They bubble up from the depths of my imagination every so often and I think it’s best not to pry further.

At the end is a blink-and-you’ll miss appearance of a character you’ll see more of in the future.


Foam Shower

This is the follow-up to “Bubble Bath”.  The unusual succubus from that is just as pleasant to share a shower with as she is with sharing a bath.  Sadly, those pleasures are invariably fatal, but we can’t have everything.


A Summer Dance with a Succubus

One of the pleasures of writing is when a story comes together and all of the elements slot neatly into place.  I’d read a few articles about sex workers who provided services to disabled persons who would otherwise not experience the pleasures of sexual intercourse.  This was something I could see my “good” succubus escort character, Nicole, doing.  I also needed a story for a summer-themed contest and one of the things about summer is it’s ephemeral – all summers end to be swallowed by the dark and cold of winter.  Some lives are also tragically short and ephemeral.  But rather than obsess over the coming cold and dark, we enjoy the sunshine and long lazy days while they last.  And life is no different.  That’s how I pictured Terry – proud and defiantly making the best of an unfortunate hand.

This was the first of my stories to place in the Literotica contests and I used the money from that to buy a Kindle from Amazon.  It’s still one of my favourites to this day.


I hope you've enjoyed this behind-the-scenes look at how some of my stories came to be.  I'll do the same for A Succubus for Halloween at some point in the future.

Tuesday, December 09, 2014

Hydra's Inspiration - A Succubus for Valentine's Day (part 2)

This is a look behind the scenes at how the stories of my second collection, A Succubus for Valentine's Day, came to be.  The first part is here.


The Spiders of Thomisoidus

I’m not entirely sure where this came from.  Spiders and silk work well with bondage fantasies and a planet full of sexy babes is a classic sci-fi fantasy.  Also the intro allowed me to have fun with a character bemoaning his lot after being suckered into taking a contract on a pleasure world that doesn’t really live up to expectations.  The teasing, stop-start nature of the sex scene was also highly pleasurable to write.


Delivery Special Soap

This is another story to indulge my fetish for soapland-style mat play.  It’s heavily influenced by Yoshiaki Kawajiri’s Wicked City (anyone who’s seen the anime will know the scene).  I was starting to think about how my story universe worked and how the various monster girl demons interacted with each other.  As the demons are operating under a kind of masquerade, it made sense for them to have rules to prevent the sort of overt conflict that would attract the attention of the human authorities.  It also made sense that Inari would know how to work these rules to her advantage and by including a reference to her I could also hint at a larger story taking place beneath these short stories.


Knight vs. Succubus

This story has an interesting tale behind it.  I was asked by a developer working on a succubus game to write a story that would help publicise the finished game (sadly, I don’t think it was ever finished).  My first attempt was this story, which was rejected for being too dark.  I liked the story and then had an idea for another loosely connected series of “X vs Succubus”.  The connection is largely restricted to the title.  This is a much darker tale than the tongue-in-cheek “Slayer vs Succubus”.  It’s also one of the few times I’ve felt guilty about offing the protagonist.


Interrocution

I think the initial idea was a cocky criminal bound to a chair and at the mercy of a succubus.  I like blending gritty mob tropes with supernatural elements.  The story is also a fitting introduction to Koontz’s right hand “man” – Physalia.  She’s a much colder and fearsome succubus.  As Koontz’s enforcer she’s definitely not to be messed with.

The title is a mashup of interrogation and execution.


Crushed Between Her Breasts


This story came about through an impromptu challenge contest on the Literotica forums.  The theme was revenge stories if I remember correctly.  I had the idea of a chauvinistic IT manager annoying one of his female workers to the point where they seek external help to teach him a lesson.

Oddly, the double team of Eryx and Eunectis are also part of my recurring roster of characters, although readers wouldn’t know it as those stories are still waiting to be published.  Nancy’s debt is still outstanding . . .


I'll post the last part on the remaining stories tomorrow.

Monday, December 08, 2014

Hydra's Inspiration - A Succubus for Valentine's Day (part 1)

This is another post where I go over where some of my stories come from.  Last time up I went through my first collection, A Succubus for Christmas.  This time I'll run through A Succubus for Valentine's Day.

There might be a few spoilers for people that haven't already read the stories.


A Succubus for Valentine’s Day

When it comes to Valentine’s Day I’m a bit of a black-hearted curmudgeon.  Most of the stories I’ve entered into Literotica’s Valentine’s Day contests have been anti-Valentine’s Day tales of some description.  It was while trying to think of an entrant I hit upon the idea of re-using the nameless succubus from “A Succubus for Christmas”.  This then became an idea for a (semi) regular series featuring her, the succubus tablet and various themed days.  In this story she’s playing a similar role to before – the evil genie that gives her poor victim what they think they want . . . until they actually get it.

I did get some comments misinterpreting Kurtzberg as a ‘nice guy’.  Admittedly, I did set the story up to present him in a sympathetic light, and maybe fool the reader into thinking this might be one of those romcoms where the unfortunate slob ends up with the pretty girl after all.  Then the story takes a turn into murkier territory until it culminates in what I hope is a gut punch of an ending (as every good anti-Valentine’s Day story should have).  Kurtzberg is unfortunate and deserves some sympathy, but his actions take him far beyond the realm of nice.

Observant readers will have noticed the version in the collection, A Succubus for Valentine’s Day, differs from the version online.  When I first started out I used to seek feedback on the Literotica forums.  For this story someone made the suggestion that the ending would be nastier if Kurtzberg was left alive to let the horror of what he’d done sink in.  It was such a good suggestion I rewrote the ending to incorporate it.


Initial Infiltration

Aside from the usual asshole victims, a regular target of mine is the naive.  GRRM has it right with A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones for TV watchers).  When one of his characters makes a poor choice politically, he doesn’t step in to bail them out.

There has been cultural pressure to move Science Fiction away from blasting the Other on sight to presenting stories where the only correct response is to attempt to resolve conflicts through discussion and understanding.  Personally I don’t like simple black and white certitudes.  When the motives of the Other are completely unknown, which approach is correct can only be ascertained with the benefit of hindsight.  In another story, another universe, Donaldson would have been the perfect protagonist to prevent inter-dimensional war.  Sadly for him, this is not that story and hell-space is not that universe.


Succubus Summoning 101

This story eventually ended up being the first chapter of the novel of the same name.  It was originally meant to be a short story about student warlocks making incorrect (and fatal) assumptions about which bits of succubi are dangerous to stick your cock in.  On the surface there is a twisted sense to the logic.  Succubi pervert the role of sexual intercourse to create new life by using it to take life.  Anal sex can’t create new life; therefore under the same logic succubi can’t use it to drain life.  Of course it doesn’t work out that way.

I neglected to kill Phil at the end of the story and since then he’s stubbornly just about managed to stay alive despite my best efforts.

The main reason I put the story in the collection was to protect myself from plagiarism.  Someone had already tried to pass off the Succubus Summoning 101 series as their own on another website.  Amazon’s kindle store was rife with plagiarists mining story sites like Literotica for material to rip off.  Having the original Succubus Summoning 101 story in here would give me some protection against that kind of shit while I was working on the ebook version.


Puffed Up

This is another superhero deconstruction story in the vein of “Squeezed”.  Sexy villainesses have always been a feature of comics even if they rarely get to fully show their stuff (generally speaking, the hero has to survive otherwise that’s the end of the comic book).  This story is a none-too subtle dig at the counterproductive aspects of the war on drugs in our own universe.  Reading it years later I think I might have been a little too cynical with the ending.

I stopped included the superhero stories in later collections because they didn’t fit in with the shared universe elements that were starting to emerge in the series as a whole.  I do have some ideas for other sexy super-villainesses.  At some point I might assemble them into a themed collection.


I'll go through the remaining stories over the next couple of days.