I'd go with my entry in the Ultimate Seduction competition, https://www.lushstories.com/stories/first-time/boulevard-girlfriend. It became the third chapter in a series, but it was published first. It's about the first sexual encounter between two virginal students, but the girl orchestrates the event so that it goes well for both of them. In fact, she had already planned what would happen.

It also describes what happens just before and especially after the encounter. For an event like that, I thought I should describe what they do and say to each other when they are in a restaurant immediately afterwards.

I suppose this is the correct place to ask this. It has to do with the ongoing My Boulevard Girfriend series (which has a chapter pending right now). Basically, it's about two students who are losing their virginity to each other and doing it in steps, with the girl taking the lead in this. The only place they really have any privacy for this is in a room in the basement of her building. She wants to try out a spanking scene (probably based on a magazine she has seen) in which she plays the role of a stern teacher and he is a wayward student. However, they want some plausible setting that could stand-in for a classroom although it doesn't necessarily have to be one.

So where would they go? They can't likely use their own schools after hours. She lives, I think, only with her mother and sister, so it is possible they might have use of the apartment if and when both are out. They can't use his apartment because he lives with a larger family and somebody is almost always there.

Quote by Jen

Hiya, I don't see anything in the queue for you. Can you check it's not still sitting as a draft? Thanks

I've been pretty distracted recently. Yes, I did have to submit it. Thanks!

Quote by RejectReality

Not seeing it now, but I've never seen it before, either.

If that's some sort of bug, it needs fixing pronto. Even if it's just a display bug of some kind, that's a panic attack waiting to happen. Imagine someone's spouse/partner seeing that.

Side note: There wouldn't be anything in that section for me if we hadn't been forced to fill it out right after the switch, and there's no way to null out the age and distance ones that I can fathom.

It's weirdly intrusive. One shouldn't have to participate in the dating portion unless one has given specific permission for that.

I know they've just had their "Summer" competition, but I've had one sitting there for two to three weeks. I wish I had kept track of the exact date it was submitted.

Quote by simplyjohn

Take option Follows under your cover image and you will see who you are following. Under that is a buttom to see who is following you.

Thank you - I didn't know it worked that way.

I must have missed something, but how do we find out how many followers we have and who they are? I haven't really thought about it in a long time, but now that I look, I can't find the info on my profile or anywhere else. I seem to remember that it was more visible on the previous version of the site.

Quote by Sandra47

I always struggle with backstory. I overthink it and can't get it how I like it. So, that's why I lead with wanton women. Now with the summer competition, 3000 limit will make me keep trending this way. I'm pretty much in it for the sex anyways. If I can't get off reading and writing it, I imagine no one else could either. But everyone is different.

You don't have to give all of the back story, or even most of it. Well, maybe you can add a bit in sequels or chapters if you have any in mind. Otherwise, you can just have the characters just sort of appearing. It may be good to specify exactly where the events are happening - I mean where geographically and in what era it's in if it's not exactly the present. It is worth mentioning their ages and what their role in life is (student, office worker, or whatever).

You don't even have to give many details about what they look life. I usually do more for the female characters than the male ones, but even there a couple of sentences probably is enough. For the clothes, I do more for the women than the men, but again, a couple sentences may be sufficient. If she's got something notably different on for a later day, then that should be described.

Quote by Jen

There should be an update rolled out this week that will fix the tags issue.

Thank you, we appreciate your help.

Quote by Jen

I'm sorry, you seem to have missed my post above which advised I had reported this.

Yes, I think I saw it but I didn't interpret it correctly. Anyway, thank you.

In fact, it's a bit worse, because I can't even create tags at this point.

Well, about three days have passed and it's still not fixed. It would be nice if someone at Lush noticed these messages and did something about it. It can't be that complicated to deal with.

Yes, I just noticed this today; this is the first time I've posted a draft in about three weeks. Sometimes "create tag" will work; sometimes not. Most of the tags I want are already in the list, but they won't "stick." It seems to be a relatively new glitch. Odd, because the existing series names will work.

I suppose one option is that the story could be entirely about the fantasies in somebody's head. There might be sex, but it's entirely imaginary. There are any number of reasons why these are not consummated, or perhaps even attempted. A story about an obsession with a celebrity might be worth trying. It doesn't have to go all the way to John Hinckley levels of craziness, but I suppose it could.

The movie Taxi Driver (partially inspired by would-be assassins Arthur Bremer and Squeaky Fromme) has some very dark but unfulfilled eroticism in the interactions of Travis with Betsy and Iris. And of course, reality followed art in that Hinckley was inspired by the movie to do what he did.

Quote by JustPassingThrough

Quote by Ensorceled
my head is not really in the erotica game right now

Glad to hear it is not just me. I keep starting stories for here but falter as I get nearer to the sex. That's part of why I left. And if I don't do the sex, the story might as well go on blue.

Well, there are plenty of sites on which to put non-erotic stories - Literotica even has a non-erotic section where I have one story. I assume that is what you meant by going "on blue?"

Quote by StarBelliedBoy

Quote by LakeShoreLimited
Oddly enough, I finally got it to work. I have no idea if they changed the coding for competition stories, although I heard they were going to do that.

Sorry, I've been having a bit of a break from here this past week. That's good to hear it worked. I know it didn't immediately after the move, then it did for a while because some were able to add ex-comp stories to series (such as to series named "Comp Stories"). Someone obviously ticked the wrong box or something during in update that unfixed it, and now remembered. Or maybe it can only be done after results of the last comp have been announced and a new one has yet to open, that's certainly a possibility as we were trying before the results of the last were out.

Well, I thank you for looking into it. It's not an issue that comes up that often (I wasn't even in the holiday comp). The comp my story was in announced the results in October or November, I believe, so quite a lot of time had passed - a couple of months? - before I tried to put it into a series. The site is in better shape than it was in September, and I assume there is a continuing effort to fix these smaller problems that keep popping up. I know it's a big job.

Quote by NicolasBelvoir

I think that's right - If the first one is a competition entry, then the system won't let you make it into a series. I discovered that when trying to make some of my related stories into a series. It's because comp entries are supposed to be stand-alone stories. But you should be allowed to add a follow-on afterwards.

Oddly enough, I finally got it to work. I have no idea if they changed the coding for competition stories, although I heard they were going to do that.

Quote by Ensorceled

Quote by LakeShoreLimited

I don't want to butt into your business, but could you expand on "Committed" or "Two Kinds of People?" I for one would like to know more about those characters.

What a kind thing to say. I am fond of those two stories, but my head is not really in the erotica game right now. It’ll return, and quite possibly with these same characters. But I’m off in other literary lands for now.

That's not so bad if you have other material to write about.

I've had some trouble adding an existing story. The series has some entries now, but that story won't show the series name in the box for that. StarBelliedBoy has been looking into the issue. (Thank you for your help!) We think it might be because the story was once a competition entry, but that is just a guess. He thinks the developers may have broken some code that had been fixed earlier.

Quote by Ensorceled

Quote by sprite

It's been close to a year since I've written a single word.

Miss you. Miss your stories. Maybe we should write another bonkers collaboration!

Vanessa and VV, I'm struggling too. Hmmm...what could we all do together to improve our creative output? I wonder....

I may just say fuck it and take February off from writing.

I don't want to butt into your business, but could you expand on "Committed" or "Two Kinds of People?" I for one would like to know more about those characters.

Quote by Ensorceled

I took just a few days off, to deal with real life stuff, and now, with all the day in front of me, the wind has gone out of my sails. I'd been pretty consistently writing 1000 words a day til the break. Now, I'm just staring at a blank page.

The solution, as boring as it is, is to keep staring at the blank page until it's not blank anymore.

EDIT: I made it to 170. Try again tomorrow, I guess.

It happens to all of us I think. Like I tried to enter the Holiday Competition and I couldn't make it work no matter how many ways I varied it. So finally I just didn't do it. Real Life and Creative Life have unpredictable interactions. By the way, I'm reminded of that scene in Barton Fink where John Turturro sits at the typewriter to do his first screenplay, and he is dismayed by the blank page in the machine.

Quote by CarltonStJames

I've been having a hard time writing anything too as of late.

I will say that reading fiction(any, not just erotica) can help. Hell, even movies could help. Anything with a fictional narrative can make you feel like creating.

A good technique is to revisit a character or characters from one of your existing stories. What are they doing a few weeks, a few months, or even years later? How have they changed as they've gotten older and had different experiences? If you have good characters, you can explore them in some depth rather than always trying to create ones with different circumstances.

Possible spoiler alert: John Updike followed his Harry "Rabbit" Angstom character, plus various relatives, friends, lovers and colleagues, from the age of twenty-six in 1959 to Harry's death in 1989. He even went on to 1999 to follow-up on what Harry's family was doing by then.

Quote by theMasterBaiter

I use google drive, and just let "failed" stories sit. Many reasons for coming back to them have already been given, but here is one more: I've found that sometimes I run across someone else who has written something similar or we are talking about something that reminds me of one of those stories. If I trust them, I'll share the document with them so they can read how I felt about it. At least once, that has lead to a collaboration on a new version of the story which was then eventually published.

Note: Google has a feature for what to do if you "abandon" an account (read: if you die). I've got mine set to notify my wife and give her access, and then if she does nothing, to delete it all. She already has access to all my writing, but I wanted to remind her it was there and might be a way to connect to my memory. And I want her to be reminded that it will be erased if she doesn't change the setting. The point is: I don't want the world to know that the "respectable" father, husband, educator, leader had this dark side. And it seemed worth pointing out that your "dirty" stories, if kept, can be set to self destruct eventually.

I guess I've wondered what would happen if I died (I'm sixty-six now) and someone went through my computer. Possibly my sister or daughter would do it. The Word files would be the easiest items to find. Maybe it depends on one's religious beliefs about life after death, perhaps. My view is that I won't be around to worry about it, so let them look. They probably will indeed be surprised!

I once removed two stories from another site because I had a major change in the plot and those two had become "obsolete," if that is the correct way to put it. I still kept copies of the old texts on file; I didn't destroy/delete them. Maybe I wanted to know where I had been or what I had been thinking at the time. It took me several months to get around to that, and it was the only time in four years with over ninety stories that I did it.

Quote by Jen

Sorry, I've just tested saving a draft and it seems fine. Do you mean it's saving an old and a new version each time you hit save?

Well, I got back to in it the afternoon and it seems to be okay now. But as I worked in the morning, I was surprised to find five different versions to the text saved in the unpublished folder, all of them somewhat different from each other. I guess it was some kind of temporary glitch? I'm pretty sure I was saving them correctly. Anyway, thanks for getting back to me.

I almost quit - or really, go on a long-term leave - twice before due to the technical problems here. Now there is a new gimmick. Each time I save a draft, a new entry is created with the text in the condition it was when the save draft button was hit. I wonder how many people have simply left here without saying good-bye.

Also, please move that Gold Upgrade button away from the right scroll-bar. It's far too easy to hit that by accident.

Quote by Guest

Quote by oldCD
I started writing ,a story of how I end up like I am ,got to 34,000 words ,and realized I cant submit it ,it is the true account of ,how my sister ,started dressing me as a girl. when I was young, I was a decade old, she was 4 years older , so can I tell the story if I am a of age ,reflecting back ?

I'd suggest you kind of summarize the story and send a PM to any one of the moderators, asking that question. But my understanding is not if there was anything sexual under age 16, even reflecting back.

My guess is that if you were ten years old, www.asstr.org is the only place online I know that would take it (if you can figure out how to submit anything there; it's pretty opaque). The weird thing is that your story sounds much better than some of the, ah, just plain bad material on there. Another irony is that you might find a print outlet for it - is there a self-publishing option open? Sorry, I know little about that or what if any rules there are. It does sound fascinating, however.

Quote by NewLushSeeker

Quote by Jen
How on earth did it get to be the default word processor?!

It wasn't back in the DOS era. Wordperfect was the biggie for a long time but dropped the ball on porting to Windows. I still swear that Wordperfect 5.1 for DOS was one of the best word processors and 5.2, their first Windows release, one of the worst. With no real competition, Word won.

I have started using Google Docs for my writing. I was stashing my drafts on my Google Drive anyhow since I use multiple devices and profiles so it was a logical next step. I was able to set up a format there that pastes here perfectly fine (or did on Lush 1, have only written for Stories Space since the upgrade and it has worked fine there).

Quote by Ensorceled
And that this could come from the same people that brought us Excel, a program so deeply frikkin cool I am unable to differentiate it from actual magik.

And, yet, even it has quirks that drive me batty as an IT guy. Though Office 365 has at least made sharing a workbook feasible. The old Shared Workbook functionality was awful. I can't tell you the number of times we had to restore or otherwise recover corrupted .xls files because of that.

I do remember using WordPerfect once. But it's been so long now that I forgot what it was like. I remember once when some people thought it was the better program. I can't even remember what era that was - the 1990s?

I do remember Lotus 1-2-3 too. I first used it in 1984 when a department of over a hundred people had one IBM-PC with no hard drive, only provisions for two floppies.

Quote by WannabeWordsmith

The extra line break will be present if your Word document has them between each paragraph. Many people do this when writing:

Lorem ipsum dolor sita...[enter]

[enter]

Lorem ipsum dolor sita...[enter]

[enter]

...

because Word's default paragraph spacing sucks.

What you should do is this:

1. Open the Styles panel.

2. Find Normal in the list.

3. Click to alter/edit it.

4. From the dropdown at the bottom of the popup panel, choose Paragraph.

5. Change the Spacing After setting to 6pt or 12pt or something sizeable; roughly as large as your font point size is a good rule of thumb. You can also alter the line spacing to 1.2 (or something like that) if you wish, for a more pleasurable reading experience.

6. Confirm the changes to the Style.

Tada! No more need to press enter twice. The paragraph will have line spacing automatically added to it with a single carriage return.

If at any time it asks you to make changes to all docs in future based on this template, you can do so if you wish. Or save the empty doc as a new .dotx template file. That's what I do: I have a "story.dotx" template so if I want to start a new story, I just choose it from the file>open menu and my style environment is already set up.

Copying and pasting into Lush from such a document is then simple without any need for subsequent faffing.

Thanks for the info. I never really considered this before - probably because the paragraph spacing is not an issue when posted to other sites.

Quote by lynnwitt

Quote by ChrisM

Copy from Word and insert using Control+C

Well, the COPY is Ctrl-C, the PASTE is probably Ctrl-V.

As long as the Lush document is in edit mode, it seems to work fine - I tried a test to see how it went. I had to adjust the paragraph spacing - the new text had an extra line space between them - but that's not a big problem.