Quote by Taco4x4
go with the one that sounds best to me.Quote by darkroot50
go with what sounds the way I think it should be.
And this is exactly how writers develop a voice. After you've done that a few times, and it beds in, you can get to the point where you don't need the grammar checker.
It's an oddly liberating experience to uninstall it and be secure in your own words.
Really? rubs eyes Out of that field? Wowsers.
Granted I've only fully read a fraction of the ones I intended to read, and skimmed many more with a plan to read them properly when life calmed a bit. I'll try and get to more. But of the ones I read, I was amazed at the quality.
Congratulations to everyone who entered - podium, top 15-ers and the full field. It does take a lot of courage to submit work for scrutiny by the judging panel (thank you for taking the time) so if you penned a story, pat yourself on the back.
As always, I'm indebted to the shortlister, judges, the moderators who worked hard over Christmas on the story backlog, Jen, and the team behind Lush. Thank you all. ❤️
There's an option to Hide your online status in Settings. That sets the "last seen" to "Over 90 days" so as not to leak info about their activity.
Congrats to all the winning entries for their fun takes on the theme, and of course to Kimmi for her generosity at sponsoring the event. These are always a blast. Love it.
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.
Not big, not clever, just determined to get better at everything I try. Author of over 100 stories here on Lush. Owner of the Challenge Erotica photog...
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.
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.
A student discovers that the innocent looking ones are sometimes anything but
First Time 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.
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.
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.
