Even deeper into the rabbit hole. I'm now regularly watching 4 different restoration channels as well. Recommended videos from the wood turning channels.
The original story that prompted the research is still in the title/cover mock-up/outline stage. LOL Not a single word of the actual story on "paper".
The second level of the rabbit hole will help with another title idea I've had sitting around in my wordplay title file with a cover mock-up for a while, because it's led me to a channel that does motor rewinding as part of old electrical device restoration. It will add another level of detail to that story, even if it's only a couple of sentences. Won't mean much to the average reader, but for those special few with a passion for restoration, it should help prevent them from being brought up short by the missing detail.
Now, I just need to get my writing drive back online so I can make use of all the new bits and bobs I've picked up.
Wish I'd known all this when I was a teenager spending days removing rust from the giant wrenches used on strip mine cranes with files and sandpaper.
A big percentage of them. Hooters, Coming In Third, Jackin' Jill, Dip in the Lake, Taste of Sherry, A Sale of Two Titties, Merry Ex-Mas, Boned, Bet Your Bottom, Labor Day, Jerk... Just a few that were title first.
I've got a text file filled to the brim with wordplay titles waiting for a story to go with them. As often as not, there's a cover image mock-up ready long before the story as well.
I almost never go very far into a story without coming up with a title for it, if it doesn't spring from the title in the first place. It's something I personally need from the get-go. That's not to say that the title won't change during the writing process, but I need something I'm at least reasonably happy with before I get going. Character names are often determined by finding a way to play with a name in the title, as was the case with Dip in the Lake, Taste of Sherry, Paige From Her Diary, etc.
The title of your story is the most prominent feature. In some places, it's the only thing related to the story itself that people see. ( Competition listings ) A title that catches the eye and piques curiosity is critical, so I don't move forward without having a good idea already in mind.
It was a beautiful spring night, so she'd left the windows open — including the bedroom window. The curtains were drawn, because she was on the cam site she modeled for, updating her picture galleries with new pics from a photoshoot, answering fan messages, etc. I got home from work that morning, hit the shower, and then crawled into bed. She promptly crawled on top of me. Found out I wasn't so tired after all.
We were at it for a while. Got her off going down on her. Then she got off twice riding me. Finally I was on top when we finished together. Quiet orgasms were not something she was capable of. We were both still in the aftershocks when the wind decided to kick up and blow the curtains inward. Her back was arched high enough that when her eyes opened in shocked realization that the window was open, she was looking at the same thing I was...
The meter reader about ten feet away, staring right at us, and chuckling. He gave me a thumbs-up as I scrambled to hold the curtains closed with one hand and reach between them with the other to close the window. We both got a good laugh out of it, even though we were both still gasping for breath.
Dropping a little note with a timestamp, because I completely missed a story that's closer on the legendary track than the two I'd noted before.
Dip in the Lake 60592
A quick glance at the numbers shows a slowdown, but that's to be expected considering I haven't put out anything new in a couple of months, and the last two that I did release were outliers to the main body of my catalog — especially the highly viewed ones.
Just purchased a brand new PC. First time ordering from an online retailer, ( Cyberpower PC ) and quite happy with the results. I have a system more advanced for the times than I've ever owned before, and it should hold up far longer. Soooo fast. Running brand new games with full display options and no slowdown. 210 some-odd hours on Dragon Quest XI demonstrated that quite well. LOL
All my writing related programs open and work much faster as well, naturally.
Still slowly tweaking my desktop/start menu/etc. to make those programs quick and easy to access. Beginning to get the writing bug back now that I've taken a long, thoroughly enjoyable walk down Dragon Quest lane ( also beat DQVIII on 3DS and I'm in the final grind of DQVII on 3DS ) I'm flipping through my in-progress drafts, mocked up covers, missing Lush categories and such, seeing if anything lights me up.
Since this forum section is about self-promotion, I'll single out "Nude Holly Day" ( linked several times above ) It's been frequently praised for enjoyable, positive characters. He takes on a young runaway as an assistant when she shows up just as he's in desperate need. She turns out to be excellent at the job, and he takes her under his wing, providing her with a stable life and a push towards continuing her education.
The company finishes a high-pressure push for an important client, and he finally has the chance to resume his regular form of relaxation at the nudist camp. When his young assistant Holly shows up there, he discovers that she feels far more than gratitude toward him.
After playing the remake of Dragon Quest VIII on the 3ds, it has just taken a definitive lead as my #1 game.
Dragon Quest knows how to make a remake, by golly. New content almost from the get-go in the form of blue chests, two new playable characters with excellent new skills who were also beloved NPCs in the original release, post-game content that blows away the already awesome post-game content of the original...
Playing back through a game I already loved to death with all these enhancements has been a couple of weeks of utter joy.
Not in the last decade... Maybe closer to 15 years.
My birthday happens to fall at about the quarter, so it's a logical place to put a week of vacation.
Voting is now underway, and will be open until April 30th.
Head over to the Clitorides site and cast your vote for the finalists!
This is the last day of nominations, so if you've been putting it off, now is the time to support your favorite Lush author.
I'll post here when the finalists are announced and voting begins, but get your nominations in now.
Don't break down anything that can be presented as a single submission. ( 10 k words or less ) Even stories in wildly popular categories take a nosedive in views when they're spread across multiple submissions.
Seems to be taking quite a while for some nominations to get processed right now. I have a couple of Lush-based ones still pending, but I'm sure they'll all get processed eventually.
NaughtyAnnie's "Knickers Off!" is on the board for Best Exhibition/Voyeur story, and Liz's "Dark Rain" is there for Erotic Poetry, so if you enjoyed those, go sign up on the Clitorides site and add your nomination to push those two works closer to the finals.
ETA: Lauradj's "Windows" is on the board for Exhibition/Voyeur story now as well.
If you know of any Lush authors or stories that deserve recognition, don't hesitate to be the first to nominate them, either. Some categories may look overwhelmed by large fanbases, but that doesn't mean an excellent story can't win the voters over and pull out an underdog win.
Remember, if your nominee is only on Lush, then that nomination is giving them an inroad to a big chunk of new readers who have never been exposed to their work before.
I finally got the mobile site to come back up for me. It was still redirecting in Chrome, so I tried in Firefox, which I'd never used to visit the mobile site before. Worked fine. So I cleared my cache and cookies in Chrome. Still no dice.
What finally worked was going into settings, and checking "Desktop Site". That produced a weird two column version of the mobile site. Once I then unchecked Desktop site, the mobile site went back to normal.
If these people had any money, they'd already have a web presence and a domain email, rather than a generic one from . They spammed Lit authors with this as well.
Scam/Pyramid Scheme/Email Harvester.
I certainly hope we don't lose any author functionality of the full site in making it mobile friendly. The ability to customize our story listings is something I utilize every time I post a story. The ability to search our story lists ( via browser->find ) is something I use almost daily.
If the full site moves to pagination for listings such as our story list, I certainly hope a full list will still be available. At the very least, a built in search function to jump to a specific story regardless of what page it's on would be critical for me.
Completely slipped my mind that you said the story was Sci-Fi while I was digging through my stuff looking for multi-chapter data. Guess I'll put up those Fantasy and Supernatural stories, even thought there's little to go off of.
For all of these, the chapters/stories posted more or less daily.
To Catch a Merchant Princess is 6 chapters of 8-9k words each, and came out in 2013. First has 8 votes, 7k views, and 2 comments. Last has 9 votes, 4k views, and 4 comments.
Lowborn is 10 chapters of around 5k words each, and came out in 2014. First has a whopping 2 votes, 3600 views, and 1 comment. Last has 1 vote, 2100 views, and no comments.
Blackhawk Hall is 6 chapters of 7-8k words each, and came out in 2014. First has 4 votes, 4780 views, and 3 comments. Last has 2 votes, 2900 views and 2 comments.
My Magic of the Wood series is 8 stories, comprised of 14 parts. Only the first two fit within a single submission. All the rest had to be split into two pieces each. One of the stories ( both parts ) got an RR, and it came out in 2014. First story has 7 votes, 4700 views, and 3 comments. Last part of the last story has 2 votes, 3400 views, and 1 comment.
No clue where I lie in the "longest" hierarchy, but my Adam series ( category ) is certainly long as hell for here.
There are sixteen chapters total. Four in the first, seven in the second, and five in the third. They're all somewhere between 5 and 6k words in length. So it's somewhere between 80 and 90k words total.
The first chapter of the first series has 28 votes, 11 comments, and 11k views. The last chapter of the third series has 12 votes, 5 comments, and 3600 views. First chapter posted on the 3rd of Dec. 2017, the final posted on Jan. 01 of 2018.
My Magic of the Wood series is actually longer, but it's Supernatural, so there's no data of any real use to draw from that. A couple of my other fantasy stories are almost that long, but again, that's a desert category where there's no real data of use.
You'll absolutely want all the chapters to come out predictably, and in a reasonably short period of time. Any lapses are almost certain to kill your retention. So, obviously have the full story complete before you post the first chapter.
That's at least one data point for you to weigh.
Fortunately, I grew up in a poor household with no cable, so I watched a lot of Bob Ross. Watching these videos gives you the same "I could do that" feeling, but comes with a far more extensive start-up cost.
It's more happy trees. You're not fooling me!
Maybe just a small desktop lathe...
:: Smacks self in face :: Stop that!
