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!)

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Chad's Challenge

My 2nd story for Literotica's Halloween story contest is up.  You can read it here:

Chad's Challenge

No idea where this one came from.  It bubbled up from the little black cells at the back of my brain and I wrote it down.  I wanted to write a simple old-style manyeyedhydra short story with monster girls and dangerous snu snu to get the machinery moving again.  It took a little longer to write than I expected, probably because it's also about 1.5K words longer than I originally anticipated.

It's a little freaky, especially on the sex bit...

I hope you all enjoy it anyway.

I've got today to finish the 3rd entrant.  That might be a little too tight.  The subject matter is topical, so even if I don't make the deadline I'll still post it to Literotica as soon as the story is finished.


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, October 01, 2015

Snuff/Skin Flick

The first (and hopefully not only) story for Literotica's Halloween story contest is up.  You can read it here:

"Snuff/Skin Flick"

This is a little more horror than my usual stories.  At one point after writing it I did briefly consider sending it out to more mainstream horror fiction magazines.  Then, after I'd stopped laughing, I decided that was a stupid idea.

All the horror movie references are real horror films.  Ruggero Deodato, the director of Cannibal Holocaust, apparently was arrested on suspicion of murdering his cast for real.  That must have brought a warm glow of job-done-well to the heart of whoever was responsible for the special effects.

I don't expect "Snuff/Skin Flick" to score very highly.  The main PoV character is too far removed from the action to have the same level of sexual intensity as my other stories and my Nasty End stories never score as highly as the Nice End stories.  Still, I hope people appreciate it as a more mainstream-type horror tale.  There are more typical succubus stories on the way (don't worry, they still have fucked up elements ;)).

As always, if you have any questions about the story or there were things that bugged you about it and you want to let me know, feel free to scrawl something in the comments below.

Oh, I might as well tackle something I saw on Literotica's boards.  Snuff is on the list of things that Literotica doesn't allow in stories.  So how does a story with Snuff in the title get through?  (and correspondingly, how the hell do you get anything posted there at all, Hydra, considering the typical death count in your stories?)

I can't speak for the official policies of the site, but in general it seems to be don't submit anything where the PoV character gets sexually aroused by killing another character in a way that could be copied out in the real world by anyone reading that story.  PoV and realism are the important factors.  From a horror literature point of view this does rule out certain types of story, but I don't blame the site owners for wanting to be cautious here.  No-one wants to feel tangentially responsible for a nutjob enacting a murderous sexual fantasy they picked up from reading a story online.  Despite this, there is still plenty of leeway for a writer to depict brutality, as this story will attest. :)

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Updates and a (Maybe) Story Bonanza for Literotica's Upcoming Halloween Story Contest

By maybe, I think three stories...  Maybe.  Maybe more.  Whenever I try to be a bit more definite about these things something goes horribly wrong and scuppers all the plans.

Anyway.  Literotica's annual Halloween contest is on the way.  The details of which can be found here.

As an aside, if you're a budding writer that likes succubi/monster girls and is not afraid to get your hands dirty with a little bit of explicit smut, contests like this are a great way to cut your teeth and find readers.

As for me, currently some of my projects have stalled and trying to bludgeon through them isn't doing my productivity any good.  I think I'll use this contest as an excuse to let #ChaosWriting out of the cage and see how many short stories I can blast out during the three weeks of the contest.  With a bit of luck that might clear my head and get the production line moving again.

The first story is already submitted.  You should see that go up tomorrow when the contest officially kicks off.  After that I'm not sure what we'll get or how many.  That's the beauty of #ChaosWriting.

I'm not trying to win this time.  There's been a trend in recent competitions for some entrants to go long, and I mean 90K-word-novel long.  With the way Literotica's scoring system works, it's pretty much impossible for a good 5-10K short story to place over a good 90K+ novel, so I'm not going to worry about it.  This is more an exercise in clearing out some old ideas and trying to get back in touch with what made me so prolific in my early days writing for Literotica (being more carefree and less trying to brute-force stories at a guess).

There's another two stories where I'm nearly done with the first draft, so I reckon we might see three new stories in October and hopefully more if the juices really get flowing.

So where does this leave the other stuff?  Here are a few updates.

Sandwiched by Series
Sticking to a hard monthly schedule isn't working here.  I like the covers and concept, so it will continue, but with a more flexible release schedule. i.e. When the story is done and I'm happy it doesn't feel rushed.  The next one is "Sandwiched by Scyllas" and I'm about 60-odd% done with it.

Okasare Kenny Series
The original idea was for this to be the monthly serial for 2016. Then I tried to use it as crazy live-novel-writing challenge, which was a cool idea, but a bad thing to launch into with other stories (in particular Succubus Summoning) still incomplete.  The Sandwiched by series was a trial to see if I could keep to a regular monthly schedule for a series with more continuity.  I'm not confident I can do that at the moment, so I won't officially (re)launch Okasare Kenny until I have six months or so worth of chapters in the can and can be confident it won't stall like Succubus Summoning 201 did.

A Night With Ceptophthorié
Alas poor game-writing experiment.  This one got shoved to the back burner when I fell behind on first A Succubus for Saint Patrick's Day, and then various other things.  It's something I want to do, but I have to get my other writing stuff sorted first.

Jackson in HRPG-World
This is tailor-made for putting up on the blog in small chapters.  I need to get other things done first (Succubus Summoning 201!) before I can get back to this.  And I will get back to it because I know how the story pans out and I'm very excited to see readers' reactions to it. ;)

Succubus Summoning 201
The big one.  The one I really should get done considering Succubus Summoning 101 outsells all my other books put together.  Why aren't I on it?  It didn't get done in November/December last year basically.  That was when I went through a rather drastic life change that involved losing my job and changing countries.  It got put to one side while I got back on my feet (and aside from not being as productive with my writing as I'd like, I am thankfully back on my feet) and now I'm having a little trouble picking up the threads again.  I should be able fix this once I get around to the editing process in assembling the previous chapters into a coherent ebook.  I'll be on that as soon as I've had my fun with Halloween.  The aim is still to get the ebook finished before the end of the year and out as soon as there's an opening in eXcessica's publication schedule.  The final two chapters (of 201) will be posted as soon as they're written though.  I'm not going to let readers wait for them longer than they have to.

Some updates anyway.  It's been a weird 12 months.  Hopefully the next 12 months won't feature quite as many missteps, fumbles and failed experiments.

In the meantime I hope you enjoy the free Halloween stories (however many of them there end up being).

Thursday, September 24, 2015

Hentai Game Review: Demon Angel Sakura vol.3

I tend to cover some weird hentai games on this blog and the Demon Angel Sakura series is possibly one of the weirdest.  While Luka of Monster Girl Quest and the various protagonists of the Violated Hero series have it bad in some of their Bad Ends, I doubt any would trade with the eponymous "hero" of Demon Angel Sakura.


Demon Angel Sakura is a platformer.  The first two games (which I covered here and here) were boss rushes where the diminutive Sakura had to fight off various monster girl titans lusting after his body (in more ways than one).  Gameplay-wise the series was little more than an excuse to show off some lushly animated and bizarre Bad Ends.

The third instalment has expanded the gameplay a great deal.  Now there are platforming levels in between the bosses jam-packed with minor enemies, each with their own lovingly-animated Bad End should Sakura not avoid or blast them out of the way.

Nothing to see here.  Just a giant succubus shooting hearts out of her pussy...
The enemy variety is a big step up from the previous games.  Instead of 5-8 bosses with 1 or 2 Bad Ends, this time there are 24 minor enemies and 6 bosses/NPCs (with some having a 2 scenes).  Each is fully animated and you don't have to worry about farting around with auto-translators as the game already comes with an English translation.

As with the previous games the focus is on vore and other bizarre fetishes.  Over the course of the game Sakura ends up being eaten (repeatedly), dissolved to mush between giant titties, inserted in a giant pussy and pissed all over, and other weirdness.  It's not a game for the faint-hearted or easily squicked out.

Flower Girl seems harmless enough.  Wait, is that our skull...?
This time there is a little bit more range to the debauchery.  Not all of the monster girls want to eat Sakura, or shove him where the sun don't shine.  Some of the monster girls just want to give Sakura a good hard fucking.  The addition of more vanilla scenes might make the game a little more appealing to monster girl hentai fans that were put off by the hardcore weirdness of the previous two chapters.  (Although you're still going to be seeing Sakura in cutaway shots of churning stomachs an awful lot).

It's still a short game, but there is a lot of H-content.  The level design is also surprisingly fiendish.  I had that classic end-of-an-Ian-Livingstone-Fighting-Fantasy-Gamebook moment when I reached a series of four doors on the final level with only one key in my possession.  I had to search the internet and a thread on ulmf.org revealed the other keys were sneakily hidden on previous levels.  Thankfully there is a shop system selling items to help with this, so the scavenger-hunt backtracking to find the missing keys is not as irritating as it first looks.

This is moderately sane compared to other stuff in the game
The other thing to note is that the difficulty level changes which monster girls appear on certain levels.  Unlocking all of them requires putting the game difficulty back up Normal or higher.  Although, thankfully for platformer-incompetents like me, this can be done mid-playthrough after the bosses have been cleared.

Overall I think the extra quantity did come at the expense of some of the quality.  The Bad End scenes felt a little shorter this time around and the boss scenes in particular didn't really do anything for me.  As always, YMMV on this depending on which particular fetish weirdness falls in your zone.  Gameplay-wise, the only thing that really irritated me was certain indestructible enemies with one-hit-kill attacks.  Those fricking Obesity Fairies... Grr.

A Sakura-Eye view of some 69
That's Demon Angel Sakura vol. 3, a game where you cross big drops by being farted out of the butthole of a giant fairy.  Do I need to say any more... :)

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

An Interesting Music Vid From Behemoth

This is for "The Satanist", the title track from the Polish metal band's last album (a cracker if you haven't had the chance to check it out).


Nothing really succubus-y about it, but it does have a pretty good urban horror vibe to it.  A neat little horror short, even without the music.

I rarely play Satanic tropes straight in my own fiction.  The cults from the heyday of Dennis Wheatley and Hammer Horror now seem a little too cosy and toothless to modern audiences.  And the central twist of most Satanic cult stories - the bad guys win at the end - has been used so many times it can hardly be called a twist any more.

The urban grit and more modern fears of alienation and surveillance give this vid a bit more bite.  Something I might have a play around with and Warsaw looks a good setting.  I've been to the city before, but it was some years ago and I didn't get a chance to see much of it (although I still ended up in places that gave me inspiration for a few stories ;) ).  Maybe I'll try and get out there again.  Hapless tourists ending up at the "wrong" strip club is always a fun recipe for a succubus horror story.

What, you wanted tits?

Okay then.  This is the first video Behemoth put out from that album (a better track in my opinion).

 
BEHEMOTH "Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel" Official Video Uncensored from Behemoth Official on Vimeo.

Good old black(ened) metal.  Never lets you down when it comes to tits.