4. New Stories only should be entered, not stories you've previously submitted. Only standalone stories should be submitted, not those which are part of a series.
Is a competition entry stated (Author's notes and profile wall) as a prequel of an existing series considered as a standalone story or a part of the series?
Quote by EmoBabydoll
I have a question too, if not a paid member how many messages can you send and does it reset at start of new day?
8 messages daily
Tip:
To prevent consuming your free daily messaging allowance due to accidental sending by hitting the [Enter] key, access your Messages Settings (envelope icon).
Click on the hamburger icon (three horizontal dots). Select Settings.
Go to Device Settings. Make sure that the Send on enter is greyed out. Otherwise, toggle to disable.
The Send on enter allows the user to send a message when pressing enter instead of manually clicking on the Send button. When this is off, the user can compose longer messages on succeeding lines within the character limit.
Quote by Meagananne1986
Update 26/3/26
Wow! Can't believe it! I had given up all hope!!
But, my 'Competition Top 10' badge (my first) for my Advent competition story, FINALLY (after 2-1/2 months!!!) showed up on my profile. Definitely an ardent lesson in Delayed Gratification.
Congratulations and good luck in the current competition!
Quote by WannabeWordsmith
It's fine.
For the writers guidance, is there a list of acceptable editing tools that will not be considered cheating when utilised, if any?
Conversely, is having another human to edit the competition entry considered as cheating?
If editing by a human is allowed, how much editing (such as copy editing) is acceptable before it is considered as co-writing? How about proofreading only?
Quote by TheShyThespian Is it still okay to use Grammarly to check grammar and spelling Yes of course. Or any other tool of choice, as long as it's limited to fixing basic mistakes of tense, punctuation, spelling, etc. The technical stuff we all miss after having stared at the piece for the fiftieth time. There's a huge difference between "please mop up any grammatical mistakes I may have missed" and "write me a story about..." and "rewrite my sentences in the style of..."
Perhaps these parts need clarification. If we deem you to have submitted a story to the competition which uses AI for writing or editing, you will be banned from this, and all future competitions, so we would recommend keeping any working notes and drafts as you go. If you have used AI to only edit your work in the past, we would strongly advise against. We will treat this the same as using AI to create and you may be banned for cheating.
Quote by CharlotteRusse1
I read stories on my iPad. I like to read random stories but sometimes I want an RR or EP or famous story etc, but I want to read one in a specific category. After I select the general type like an RR, I don’t seem to be able to retain that filter and then also pick a category like ‘College Sex’ or ‘Cheating’ etc. The result of the two filters is just the last choice even though the ‘RR’ or ‘EP’ is highlighted. The only available refinement is a limited number of tags. Is this an iPad problem or is there something I’m missing?
From the main story page, tap on New Erotic Srories. You will be redirected to the page.
From there, you will see Search, Submit and Categories. Tap on Search. The right filtering page will show next.
Your can leave the Search field empty unless there are keywords that you wish to filter your search further with.
Select a Genre.
Select a Category.
You will notice that the stories will be filtered according to your preference.
Quote by techgoddess
FYI, Jen recently updated her post on the first page of this thread to inform authors about wait times:
Update: Jan 2026.
Story wait times remain high nearly consistently now.
For premium members, expect to wait 1- 7 days
For non premium members, the wait may be up to 3 weeks at peak times.
Thank you. I already edited a reply to a separate but related post.
I have noticed several new writers who ask about the story approval timeframe in the chatroom and the forum. At times, they don't get a prompt answer. It is either because no one who knows is available to reply, especially in the chatroom, or they can't wait for someone to answer.
As a curious reader who doesn't write, I tried submitting a story to check if my suggestion may be useful. Don't worry, I recalled it immediately.
I would like to suggest that after (or before) the Publish button is clicked for submission, a note, link or popup message be added which sets the proper expectations to authors which may include:
-approval timeframe based on the different subscription tiers
-possible longer timeframe when there is an ongoing competition
-do at least a punctuation and spell check and proofreading to minimize story returns
-what happens if they recall a story or when a story is returned
-fast tracking and editorial support benefits of a premium subscription
This is aimed to promote awareness and management of expectations especially for excited, if not anxious, first time writers. Perhaps, even increase user satisfaction as I've noticed frustrations when they wait too long not knowing that it may take longer than they expected. Additionally, to minimize misinformation.
Quote by Sissy2013
So how long does a typical review take? I'm new here and I'm not sure about how long it takes. It's been 24 hours at this point. So I was wondering what the typical time frame was.
For non-premium members, the wait time will usually range from 5-10 days, but can creep up to 2 weeks at busy times.
https://www.lushstories.com/forum/lush-help-desk/story-verification-times-2
Edit:
Update: Jan 2026.
Story wait times remain high nearly consistently now.
For premium members, expect to wait 1- 7 days
For non premium members, the wait may be up to 3 weeks at peak times.
Quote by WannabeWordsmith
Uhh, sort of.
I think (not entirely sure) that the list actually shows Platinum authors first and then everyone else after (don't ask why: I argued against it!). Each set is in reverse chronological order. But because mods are "implied platinum" they don't get listed in the first set.
So the order is:
Platinum members: newest first.
Mods, gold, silver, free: newest first.
Is that perhaps what you're seeing?
Yes. That was the other factor that I can not prove if right. The seemingly endless pages of highlighted authors ended on page 20 along with mods, Gold, Silver and free membership all in one page.
Case solved! Thank you for your assistance.
And thankfully, no IF at all in the queue.
Update: from 33 pages down to 25 pages
I randomly picked pages from the far end forwards to read-like/favourite or for some, just removed.
Whilst in the process of chopping off more stories in my reading queue, I discovered that the 'missing' stories were indeed in the queue BUT added in an odd placement. The missing unread stories (January 2026 to 2025-2023) from Obsolete_Fox, techgoddess, Georgia_27_8, and LinaDS2025 showed after older stories published in 2013, in the last few pages (20 of 25) of the queue along with other authors like KimmiBeGood, MILF_Clarissa, Katherine, stockingluvr, dronette56, AvidlyCurious, leggielibby, NishasWorld, and Seraphina_022 to name a few.
The stories were supposed to be listed in chronological order from recently added to the oldest from the first page to the last. They were in chronological order until reaching page 20 with an old story in 2013 suddenly jumping to an hours old story of Obsolete_Fox.
From that page, they were still in chronological order to the very last page with stories as old as 2013. In case you're wondering, I added the stories older than my Lush 'tenure' years before this issue.
Quote by WannabeWordsmith
That's very odd. I knos I get notifications from some authors (likes and stuff) that raise a bell notification but don't appear on any timeline. So once I acknowledge or clear the bell, I can't see the activity.
Perhaps this is some strange related bug where certain (types of) stories aren't added to the queue? Maybe mods are exempt for some reason (all three accounts you listed have that in common)? Or maybe mods with certain privacy settings are exempt?
Indeed very odd.
IF is filtered through my settings. The authors I follow don't write IF either so that won't be the case.
By the way, I removed over 100 stories in the queue leaving 870 behind. In addition to that, I unfollowed and followed the aforementioned authors in case it needed a refresh. Two of them are story mods. You are an admin. One is a global chat mod. The other is a regular member.
I will monitor and report back when a new story is out from the Mythical 5.lol
Quote by WannabeWordsmith
Crikey, and I thought my reading queue was out of control! 🤣
Maybe you're hitting some internal limit in the number of follows or reading queue entries, as you suggest. I doubt it, but who knows.
One way to prove that would be to prune some and then see if new ones come into the queue from whoever is left on your follows list.
Guilty of hoarding smut. lol
I can remove a bunch from the queue. I follow 69 members at the moment. About half of them have not published new pieces.
About the limit, new stories from other authors are added. Not from those I mentioned. None of their January stories showed in the reading queue. Techgoddess, Obsolete_Fox and your stories have not hit the reading queue as of sometime last year. I had to look from the profile if not the main story list when I clear the bell notifications without reading them first.
Quote by Jen
How many do you have in your queue? Just wondering if you've reached an arbitrary limit.
I have 972 stories including the recently added Ignition. A fraction of which are years old stories that have been read and liked but not favourites yet perhaps still worth a reread. Thus, I added them back to the queue.
To note a few more, WannabeWordsmith', Obsolete_Fox, and Georgia_27_8's stories didn't get added, too. At first, I thought it was because I have been following them for a long while. However, LinaDS2025, whom I followed maybe a couple of months or so, didn't either.
I don't know if this the case. It seems like each time I follow a new author, a previously followed authors' upcoming stories do not get added to the reading queue.
Quote by WannabeWordsmith
Yeah, some of them are "system" albums that you can't alter, so you have to either ignore them or empty their images if you don't want to use them.
Picture
By
Damn
Picture
🤬
These might be good to pass on to the developers
https://www.lushstories.com/forum/lush-help-desk/media-album-management
If you resubmitted a published story after adding a photo, it gets returned to the Story Moderation Queue for 'remoderation'. Adding a 'Note to the Moderator' highlighting if you added or changed a cover to an already published story will help the mods fast track yours.
Also, for your guidance, as posted by Katherine , a moderator, six days ago,
Hey everyone, just a heads up. If you add a cover pic to an existing story, the site does not show the verifiers that no changes were made to the story itself, so we'd have to go over the entire story again as if it's new. As everyone knows, the story queue is insane, so we won't be prioritizing those. They'll get done buuuuuut.... it'll be a bit.
The system only allows for one of your submissions in the queue at a time, so do consider this before you pull an older story to add a cover picture. Thanks for all your patience! ❤️❤️
https://www.lushstories.com/forum/lush-help-desk/story-verification-times-2?page=8
Has anyone else been missing new stories in their Reading Queue (RQ) from some followed authors?
The bell notifications were received but the stories were not added automatically to the RQ. Oftentimes, I read the new releases as they get published. Unfortunately, there are occasions when I can not do it instantaneously.. When I have time to catch up on my reading, it is convenient to simply scroll through the RQ instead of perusing the full story roster, unless I am trying to discover other author and/or story options.
For an example, techgoddess' latest story, 'His to Use', is not in my RQ. That was published two days ago. Other stories that were published around the same day are still in the RQ except for those I have read (automatically removed once liked).
Quote by CosmicTwist
How come it seems there are some media folders you cannot delete or delete the images within them? I just posted an image into a private chat and didn’t notice it said it would upload it to Misc which it did, but now it seems I cannot delete the photo or make the folder private. Same with a folder called Cover Images, I would like to delete a photo from there but there is no option to do so
Images uploaded through the Lush Mail and Forum go to the Misc folder. Unlike user-created folders, Public, Private, Cover Images and Misc are default Lush Media Centre folders which are unmodifiable. These folders can't be switched from private to public or vice versa. The folder names can't be changed either. However, you can delete any media within these folders individually.
To delete an image:
1. Open the specific folder/album where the image was uploaded.
2. Click/tap on the hamburger (3 vertical dots) at the upper right corner of the image.
3. Select 'Delete' from the selection popup.
4. A popup message will appear asking 'Are you sure you want to delete this media?'
Click/tap on the Delete button.
5. A confirmation message will appear that says, 'Media has been deleted.'
Quote by darkroot50
Those are always my first steps - clear cache, clear history, then restart. This isn’t a constant issue, but it has happened at least once a day for the last few days. I’m on a Mac and typically use Safari. Over the last few months, I switched to DDG for privacy. If it’s not something y’all can fix, I'll learn to live with it and keep using DDG. Thanks John.
I have been using Duckduckgo since I joined. Have you tried refreshing the page? It always works on mine when I get similar results like 'no images' when I'm viewing someone's Public album or 'no stories' when there are from an author. These happen seldomly that I haven't considered submitting an enquiry.
It is twelve images including GIFs and videos, if any.
https://www.lushstories.com/forum/site-announcements-feedback/media-centre-limits
