Abstention Calling

I wallow in thought as café customers bustle around me.

That's it. I'm done with girls. New Year, new me. Four dumpings in six months; one straight after Christmas? Enough!

Time to forget Trish sucking my soul through my cock. Hannah begging “Harder” when I bite her nipples. Olivia’s tight arse. Tamsin’s deepthroa…

“Is this seat taken?”

I snap up. Brunette tresses framing button nose and freckled cheeks. Smiling. Inviting. Chic. Ripe for exploration.

Fuck.

Part two of what I'm calling my Wild Initiation series was published last week. In this chapter, the first time sexual encounter for Travis, with saucy minx Jasmine, goes into the stratosphere. He most definitely does have One Helluva First Ride.

The concluding part, Eight Feet Under, is written and I'll push it to the moderation queue probably later in the week, or next week, to give my lovely readers and followers time to catch up [here's part 1: Cover Book Judge Don't if you're completely new to the series]

Happy New Year to you all.

Quote by Chet_Morton
the IF designation is absolutely required

Correct.

Quote by Chet_Morton
Suppose a story is a poem [or micro/flash] involving a polarizing category

As kistin says, IF tops everything because it has a user switch for it, regardless of format. A poem or micro with IF content goes in IF. Always.

Otherwise, as seeker says, your category reflects the dominant topic, with tags acting as thematic indicators to allow people to use the category and tags search filters to hunt for things they like in combination. Tags can make a huge difference to discoverability, so using popular tags and combos helps stories be discovered by others reading those topics (tags and the category are also used as matches at the bottom of stories to offer "other stories you may like").

Using your own weird tags or overly specific tags is counter productive. For example "54-year-old man seduces teen" is likely to get zero hits and zero searches. But "older man" is currently used on around 700 stories, "older man/younger woman" is used on around 350 stories, and the "seduction" and "teen" tags both have thousands. So the chances of it matching other stories with those tags in combination are quite high, and significantly more likely to get visibility than the specific tag.

Happy 2026, sexy butt fans

The second part of Cover Book Judge Don't is written, but I hit the Christmas shutdown lock five minutes after it began, so it'll land in the queue in January. It also seems to have led to a third, and likely final, instalment to the series, for which I've written about three paragraphs so far.

Here's the cover of Part 2 to whet your appetite if this is your thang.

... or less...

When you want just that little bit more...

Quote by rdodger
Lush isn't approving stories again until after January 3

That's not strictly true. We're not accepting new submissions until then, but we'll chip away at publishing the current queue with the aim of making it hit near zero by Jan 3rd.

This poll might provide some context from a reader perspective.

It's Christmass...

The closing date was midnight GMT and, unfortunately, the lock on all submissions came in moments later. Since it's a system-level change, none of us can override it. The button is missing for me too.

Sorry about that. But please consider submitting it in the new year anyway. We love well-written stories.

In honour of all things round...

Fab writing, Katherine. A well-deserved award for someone I've shamelessly learned more from than you'll ever know. Congratulations.

^^ that first one is clearly AI generated - who has a window latch at floor level?! I usually try to steer clear of posting artificial images here, but couldn't resist that one.

Quote by Chet_Morton
Because AI is developed by bros,

Yeah, just try asking for small breasts. Ain't no such thing, apparently 🤣

Quote by Chet_Morton
I'm wondering how she uses that eleventh finger. 😉

Hah. The number of times I've generated a stunning cover pic, perfect in every detail except the character has 12 fingers, or one prawnfinger, or a limb that goes in the wrong direction, or one extra arm sprouting from her waist, is not funny. I sometimes wonder if AI engines throw in stuff like that for their own amusement.

I sometimes have to crop my images very carefully to hide an extra appendage

This is what I do more often than not.

Woohooooooooooooo. I put a load of work into this one, so I'm absolutely thrilled the panel liked it enough for the EP. I suspected it might not fit the comp theme as well as others, so not placing in the top ten wasn't a surprise. But this is. A very, very welcome one. I'm ecstatic.

Thank you so much to all the panel members who took time to read and cast a vote. It's deeply appreciated.

Quote by paddlingincognito
How much time/effort do you put into your cover art?

A lot. If I can find a sexy pic that sparks an idea or matches the storyline, I'll justs tick a title on it. Sometimes they need editing in Affinity to add fades or layers. Other time I use freebie generators, but the results are usually disappointing so it's a last resort.

Most of the time I spend an hour or two on cover art. Sometimes, like in my latest comp story, that equates to longer than it took to write!

I had zero inspiration for the Advent comp. Like, absolutely nothing. Then an idea popped in my head yesterday.

I did a cover first, because the events would be strongly tied to it. Sat down in front of an empty document and the story poured out in under an hour. I added the final sentence, and the word counter read 1467. Woot.

Still got a few rounds of editing to go, but I'm hopeful.