Even better, I was able to create "Ancient Peoples" and "Adam's Aunt" with no edits to the text, so those series designations were created and linked up without issue, or need for them to go into the queue. Remembered that "Her Flock" needed a series, and it went off without a hitch. Never linked the two chapters of "Pawnographic" together, and that's cleared up.
Must have accidentally clicked in the story text box when I went to add the links to "Jackin' Jill", though. That one went to the mod queue, so I'm on pause. If I'd known it was going to hit the queue, I would have removed the double carriage return at the beginning. Decided that leaving that one little bit of formatting buggery was worth the mods not having to verify it again, but alas...
Several more that I never linked the chapters together on, but I know many of them have the double carriage return issues throughout, so I'm going to leave those alone until at least after the new year. That's why they didn't get the chapter links when the feature was introduced. I know how to fix it now, but I've stuck enough stuff in the queue at a busy time of year cleaning up "Magic of the Wood". After Jackin' Jill Ch. 02 clears, if 3 hits the queue ( though it shouldn't ) I'll pause on that until after the new year as well.
Deleting the carriage returns worked, thankfully. Incredibly tedious, but better than having to replace the entire text after fixing it in Word — at least for not eating up excessive time for the mods.
All 17 existing parts of the series are now finally connected, and ready for the stories to come to be added to the timeline. I'm really hoping my muse will cooperate to get Dale's story "Queen of the Wood" out for Earth Day in the upcoming year, and the story I've been laying groundwork for since all the way back in "Kindred" out for summer — "Beloved of the Wood" Kindred was originally finished in 2010, so I'll have been a decade laying the groundwork for one scene at the end of "Beloved". Yep. That's right. One scene. I needed a logical way to explain something, so I've been creating characters and locations specifically for that purpose this whole time.
One down, two to go. I need to establish the series for "The Ancient Peoples", which only has two existing stories so far. Then I get to go through another marathon collating the 16 stories in the "Adam's Aunt" series. Blinking into those, it looks like they aren't plagued by the double carriage returns that were in most of the Wood stories. Thank heavens. Can't really collect my "Nobles by Deed" stories, because I bounce around in that timeline a lot. Decided not to collect "The Fey Folk" because there's no character crossover, none planned, and no timeline. Everything else I think works fine just being connected by the links and having "Ch." or "Pt." in the title, without the addition of a series designation.
Thanks to everyone who commented and offered advice. This first quest was painful due to the changes in the editor that happened after I submitted most of the stories, but not quite as vexing as I had anticipated, once I got the ball rolling.
I'm going through one of my long series right now, and it's gone off without a hitch so far.
Key points: Only put the series name and check the box on the FIRST story of the series. From there on out, on all subsequent stories in the series, you ONLY select a previous story with the drop-down menu. Don't put a series name in the box, and don't check the box. Only select the previous story, which must be the most recent one connected to the series.
In my case, that meant I checked the box and entered the series name "Magic of the Wood" on the first story, "Steward of the Wood". When I edited the next one, the only thing I did was select "Steward of the Wood" as the previous story on "Daughter of the Wood". On "Forever of the Wood Pt. 1 of 2" I selected "Daughter of the Wood" as the previous story. Then "Forever of the Wood Pt. 1 of 2" when editing "Forever of the Wood Pt. 2 of 2"
You have to do it in a continuous stream. First story, second story, third story, etc. If you get out of order, I'm pretty sure it's going to mess up. Best bet is to not try to do more than one at a time. Submit one, wait for it to be approved, then submit the edit for the second story.
The series header doesn't show up during the preview after the submission screen. It will appear after you have submitted the edit, on the confirmation screen that has the "Submitted for moderator approval" message at the top.
I just submitted the edit to the second story, and already did the full replace on that one. Looking at the next story in the series, both parts of that one only have one unexplained double carriage return at the beginning, so those will be easier fixes that can be done in the editor. It looks like "Secret" has the same issue as "Daughter".
The good news is that when the "Submitted for moderator approval" screen came up on "Daughter", the series indicator was there, so at least I got that part right. LOL ( ETA before submitting post, it's been approved and the final is good )
I'll try simply deleting the carriage returns between paragraphs on the next one that has the problem when I edit, but when I last tried that, the preview was a wall of text. I'll try Shift+Enter when I do the next one as well, to see if that will work in the editor.
Thing is, they're not extras. That's a single blank line between the paragraphs. It's just that wide. ( Actually, there is one double at the beginning. Not sure where it came from )
If I backspace between paragraphs, it becomes a wall of text. If I hit return after that, it creates the same wide space. So, I can't fix it in the editor. I'm going to have to copy it from the editor, paste it into Word, fix it there, and replace the entire text to eliminate it. I've tested with a few paragraph chunks, and that does indeed work.
Guess I don't really have any choice. I don't relish the idea of going through the process, but I really don't like having to force a mod to do a full read of something already approved for a technical glitch + adding the series designation, because I'm sure it will show up as having been 100% modified in the mod panel. These are not quick reads. I'll do them one at a time and try to leave some time between them so I don't put too much extra work in the queue.
Well, both of my "Fit the theme but won't fit in the word count" stories are up. LOL
I'm about halfway through "Leigh Ride" and about halfway through the wordcount, so we'll see if this one will squeeze in, or whether it will be my 0 for 3.
Another idea in, and shot down. I'm already 2k words into the setup, and enjoying the way it paints my MC too well to cut any of it out. It's utilizing some of the stuff I've picked up in the research rabbit hole. Not enough word space left to fit into the guidelines. Another one that will be on theme, but posted outside the contest. I'm officially 0-2.
Guess I'll start mining for another source of inspiration.
Trucker's wives. 19 and too horny/dumb to think about the consequences, until they almost caught up with me. Lots of valuable experience, but always this close to disaster.
The girl I call my deadly attraction. Off and on from fifth grade until I was around 20. Always ended with her cheating. ( which obviously in the earlier years, amounted to kissing and holding hands ) Even once I completely wrote her off, she obviously took great delight in tempting me. We had tons of mutual friends, and ended up at the same parties all the time. Any time she wanted to get fucked and didn't have a dick on hand, she'd come after me, and my drunk ass would end up in bed with her. She was always smug about it afterward. Ended up screaming and clawing at me when I finally was either sober or fed up enough to tell her to fuck off.
Gorgeous and wild as hell in bed, which was what kept me coming back for more, even once I all but despised her. Also more than a little psycho. She moved not long after that, and I haven't heard a word about her in over 20 years.
Depends upon what you mean by "meet"
The 30-something lady who made the donuts at the store I worked at pulled a sympathy play on me when I was 19. All tears and "could you run me home. I don't think I can work today." I'd known her for months, but it was a "hello" situation, and I typically got off shortly after she arrived. Ran her home that day, and ended up in bed with her maybe 10 minutes after she asked me to come in. Got passed to three of her friends as well — one of which also worked in the deli at the store. The other two I met at the door of the hotel room. Excellent learning experience, and one I'm saving to fill the "Novels and Novellas" category eventually. Long haul trucker "widows".
Yep, it ended with the scare of my life after a couple of months.
My Baileykins and I didn't even make it home from the airport when we met in person for the first time, though we'd been talking online for quite some time.
Already writing one that fits the theme, but it's 1k words even now. I really don't want to compress the heat of the story to make it fit the word count. Hell, that scene will probably exceed the word count, never mind the setup and closing.
With the closing date being after the new year, there's at least time to muse.
I've got at least one favorite on 156/192 submissions. ( Some of which are chapters of longer works )
The closest runner up to "Boned" is "Double Dip" with 25, and it's my only EP to earn that accolade without being the runner-up in a contest. It drops another third to around 14 for the next couple, and then halves for the next couple, followed by 1-5 on everything else.
I honestly have to laugh at the obsession with it. I remember only having to order a box of 6 Nutella for the grocery store about once a year back in the 90s. That frikkin' white lid meant you had to dust the things obsessively to even keep up that rate of sale. Nobody would touch it with a ten foot pole. Out of nowhere, it's all the rage.
Despite knowing it sells now, and doesn't sit there for 365 days at a time, I still won't touch it.
"Boned" with 45 and 176,437 hits at the moment. My one and only Legendary. RR and been at the top of the Milf popular tab for quite a while. You never know what's going to fly. That story is amidst my top tier everywhere it's posted, and I dashed the story off in less than 24 hours from concept ( the wordplay title and tagline, which is where a lot of my stuff starts ) to first draft, if I remember correctly.
Nothing else even comes close. I don't get all that many favorite listings.
It depends upon the story.
As often as not, in this pen name, I leave everything at a HFN ending ( happily for now ) The stories aren't that deep, and are really only vehicles for a sex scene. There's resolution to whatever conflict I established, but I always have at least some little threads that could be pulled on if I choose to write a sequel. Nothing that screams for a follow-up, but enough to entice people to want more.
In deeper stories for my other pen names, ( some of which are here, but we can only have one pen name here ) I tend to wrap everything up in a nice little bow. I wouldn't really say they have epilogues. They simply end with everything resolved, and most often have a HEA ending. ( happily ever after )
I actually do epilogues ( often full chapters ) for my longer fantasy work. Wrap up everything, revisit with characters and places from the story to show how everything turned out. That kind of thing. If I know there's going to be another story coming, or it's a history story leading toward something already written, I typically give at least a mild tease of things to come.
Cliffhangers are for ( in all the various degrees, from mild "so, let's go do this" right up to genuine dangling from your fingertips ) the end of chapters, not the end of stories.
It does matter. No matter how hot the content is, you have to remember that you're seeing what you were thinking when you wrote it — not necessarily what's on the page. That's doubly true if you're reliving fond memories and extremely aroused by them.
If the sentence structure is confusing, or the wrong word ends up in there due to a typo or homonym, it brings readers up short. One mistake may be a speedbump that they'll recover from. If it happens repeatedly, you're going to lose them. They don't have the benefit of your memory or fantasy. They're depending upon the words you've written to paint that picture for them. If they keep having to stop and look at something a couple of times in order to figure out what you meant, that picture rapidly falls into tatters.
Thought about adding some blinking Christmas lights, but it's probably been a decade since I made an animated GIF. 
Your average lock isn't security, folks. It's a deterrent at best.
