Yes, definitely. Especially when I'm sketching out the initial outline of the story, I need to take frequent breaks.

I don’t like using “cock” over and over. I keep a list of synonyms for cock, pussy and tits to reduce the repetition. I also tend to go heavy on alliteration (“pulsing prick,” “slippery slot,” “fantastic phallus”) to add to the variety.

If it were just New York versus LA, I'd pick NY in a heartbeat. Just a whole lot more real than LA, and as a midwesterner I can handle New York weather.

But if it's west coast versus east coast as a whole, as much as I have enjoyed trips to the Northeast, I'd go west. Not so much California (well, parts anyway), but the Pacific NW has my heart. Lived there for many years, and still visit regularly. I think it's gotten harder to live west of the Cascades than when I lived there, with all the August-September wildfire smoke the last few years, but when you've got the ocean, lovely inland Puget Sound waters, snowcapped mountains, cosmopolitan but semi-manageable cities, some of the world's snowiest ski areas, breathtaking deserts all within a few hours' (or shorter) drive, and not too much weather, fauna or flora that are trying to kill you, that's a tough package to beat.

Wow! I'm stunned! Dick Job made the Top Ten in the Noir contest. I feel honored, and I offer my thanks to everyone who read or voted for my story.

Thanks to the judges for their extremely hard work in reading almost a quarter of a million words! Thanks also to EVERYONE who took the trouble to write and submit stories. I really appreciated the diversity of approaches and settings in meeting this challenge, and had a very enjoyable time reading them all. It's clear a lot of people went went to a lot of effort to concoct these tales. And of course, congratulations to the winners. I was a little surprised by the result, expecting it to fall more along the lines of the voting, but I certainly wouldn't argue because you all deserved it! Those were three spicy, inventive, clever stories.

On a personal note, I'm stunned that my own story even cracked the top ten. Thank you for the honor.

I had this English teacher in high school who was pretty stacked, and this habit of standing in front of the class with her hands on her hips watching the kids file in just before the bell rang. At least a couple times, she did this with full nipple erections going on. I can still picture her vividly in that state.

FMM is definitely at the top of the list for me. I would love to work with another guy to bring a woman maximum pleasure. Whether she needs two guys in her at once, or maybe she needs two guys to take turns in her to get there, or any other combination thereof, I'm happy to help either way. As with Chumba, it would be best if the other guy is bi: in my case, I am going to want to touch and hopefully suck the other guy's dick at some point in the session, though I'd want to keep most of my attention focused on her.

FFM would be great too. Being in the room while two women are kissing, touching and suckling each other is the dream of every man who likes women, right? And the other guys are lying.

MMM is also on the bucket list. I would love to get in a swordfight with two other guys. Oddly, I just realized that although I've published both FMM and FFM stories, I haven't put any MMM stories out there yet. I have had a couple of individual MMM stories as well as an entire MMM series under development for some time, though, so I might have to get to work on polishing those up. Actually, the MMM series culminates in FMMMM.

FFF is not a logistical possibility unless watching counts. Even then, never gonna happen. I can't imagine even my most openminded lesbian friends agreeing to something like that, and it's not something I would ever do without permission.

Quote by krystalg

Oooh, yummy. I like it hard!

OK, I wasn't thinking of it that way, but yes, if I can get through one new story a day I will be hard all week.

Quote by joe71

Jaymal's just showed up too, just under the wire. One day to go!

Wow, there ended up being a total SIX last-minute entries for me to catch up on. Stunning. It's going to be hard to get work done this week.

Quote by KimmiBeGood

Another fabulous entry just dropped in! And I think Jaymal is dropping his soon! Y'all have killed it in this one, me thinks! All are Noir, imo. All different. All interesting reads for me. I still have some to go. I have written all lengths and found writing a 10K story to be the most difficult. I couldn't do it and have great admiration for each of you who did!

Best of luck to you all!

Jaymal's just showed up too, just under the wire. One day to go!

One more: any talk of “breeding” or making babies. I know some guys are obsessed with the idea of impregnating, maybe especially in cuckolding situations, but for me any chance of pregnancy is the most effective form of birth control.

Absolutely amazingly written story. Had me laughing many times.

As long as they did too. All three.

Nope. Bush for me (full or trimmed), the way it was for almost all of human history until the 1990s.

Quote by Seeker4
joe71

I often find myself cringing at little errors in my older stories too. Mostly they're pretty minor stuff, but if were a major error I'd probably edit and resubmit with a note to the mods on why.

A drop of precum.

Kinda hard to imagine someone wanting to pay for sex with me.

Full hair down there. I came of age in the Eighties, when even women usually had full bush down below. I guess I like both women and men in a more natural state (though shaved armpits and legs on women are fine, as was the norm in the Eighties as well). Love burying my face in a bush, whether my lips are wrapped around labia or a cock.

Lots of major grammatical errors. A few minor ones here and there are par for the course, except of course in Competitions, where the standards are higher. But I run into three or four glaring ones on the first screenful, I'm out.

What am I listening to? Why, in the last week of the Noir competition I'm listening to the playlist for my entry ("Dick Job"), of course. An homage to the music of the Seattle-ish area, as the story is an homage to the city itself. Full track listing: https://www.lushstories.com/forum/self-promotion-and-marketing/dick-job-my-entry-in-the-noir-competition?post=4186920

No, not really. Doesn't do anything for me in and of itself. But if I were with someone who thought it was hot for me to do it, or if I was with a guy who thought it was hot to wear them, then I'd probably find it hot just because they do.

I would not say that any photo without (c) is fair game. Photos may have been cropped to remove (c), but could still have digital watermarks embedded indicating their ownership.

I've never had a cover photo for any of my stories, being pretty cautious about committing copyright violations, but I have long been envious of other authors who do it. I recently got a tip from a fellow Lusher that imagefap.com is a great source of sexy pics that are free to use. I haven't dug in very deep, but it looks like this is what I will be using in the future. Plenty of non-hardcore pics on there that are potentially suitable for Lush cover images.

I have done several series where the parts are labeled as "Part One," "Part Two," etc. Although I make an effort to at least include enough setup in each chapter so that a reader coming into the middle of the series won't be blind to what's been going on, I have noticed the dropoff mentioned by RejectReality. I may continue numbering stories in series (like Midlife Renewal) where they really are immediately and intimately connected and involve most of the same characters, but I think I will try to limit the total number of numbered chapters to a half-dozen or less.

Quote by RejectReality
The series linking isn't noted in most listings, and isn't overly prominent on the story page itself.

On the other hand, where there there is less of a direct linkage from one story to the another (as in much of my Becoming a Man series, for example, where the primary connection is simply the central character over time), I'm shifting more to publishing them as standalone stories: a catchy title without chapter numbers, and the exposition written so that everything that happened in the past is just background. This should better appeal to people coming to the characters and situation for the first time. But where I do have some sort of a sequence (at least in my head) to them, I would still use the series linking for the benefit of readers (and I have had a few) who enjoy following a longer narrative. Fortunately, as RR mentioned, the series linking isn't by itself prominent enough to put off most readers who just want a hot standalone story.

Not really kinks, but things I like that the average guy may not be into: other guys, cum, trans women and pubic hair.

Only real kink that I have is watersports.

Humiliation or degradation.

Excessive squirting. See above comments.

Choking. Just no.

I don’t mind inane plots and actor dialogue - it’s porn, so I kind of expect that - but I do agree that the asshat behind the camera needs to STFU.

Twerking. Like squirting, it’s not something that really was a thing when I was younger, so it’s not programmed into me as something sexy. When I see it, I shake my head and ask, “does that really turn younger guys on?” Maybe if I was more of an ass man?

Stepmom/stepdad/stepbrother/stepsister sex. Seems to be most of the porn clips the last five years or so. Are that many people really wanting to bang family members and using the modifier “step” to make it okay? I will occasionally find one of these hot, but their prevalence seems pretty fucked up. Sex with my friend’s mom? Hot. Sex with my own mom, or stepmom? Not.

This has been a complaint since right around 1990 (and I have been watching porn longer than that) but I’m with Safryzer in lamenting the overwhelming dominance of women being shaved down below. It has taken literally three decades before I’m finally able to turn off the alarm bells in my brain that scream “child!!” and make me go limp when I see a bare pussy. My subconscious programming is that bush is an essential part of womanhood. I’ve never had sex with a woman who didn’t have hair down below. Fortunately at least a little bush is starting to make a comeback, although the narrow pencil bushes just seem weird.

This might be a niche complaint (well, apparently, so is lack of pubes), but in most male-bisexual porn clips the guys start right into it with each other without any prologue, as if that’s the most natural thing in the world between two guys. It isn’t: breaking through the barrier that keeps most guys from getting together with other guys is tricky. Cutting through that tension is the sexiest part, and is what most of my bi stories are about. Contrast this with female bi clips, which often have an elaborate setup (yes, sometimes inane, but at least they bother) involving one of the girls hinting at their inclinations or comforting the other after breaking up with a bad boyfriend, etc. Often these clips don’t even get into kissing or sex until halfway through. I want to see bi-male porn written and filmed more like bi-female porn. Seduce me, man!

Okay, that was a long rant.

Alex Chance, Lena Paul, Lauren Philips, Lara Brookes. Notice that the common trait among them is the presence of pubic hair.

And finally, in the condo:

The Posies. “Golden Blunders.” Dear 23, DGC, 1990. Bellingham counts.

Robert Cray. “Smoking Gun.” Strong Persuader, Mercury, Hightower, 1986. .

Young Fresh Fellows. “How Much About Last Night Do You Remember." Topsy Turvy, PopLlama, 1985. .

Nirvana. “Something in the Way.” Nevermind, DGC, 1991.

The Posies. Frosting on the Beater, DGC, 1993.

Death Cab for Cutie. “I Will Follow You into the Dark.” Plans, Atlantic, Barsuk, 2005.

Car chase:

Pearl Jam. “Better Man.” Vitalogy, Epic, 1994.

Soundgarden. “Fresh Tendrils.” Superunknown, A&M, 1994.

Brandi Carlile. “The Joke.” By the Way, I Forgive You, Elektra, 2018.

The Postal Service. “Such Great Heights.” Give Up, Sub Pop, 2003.

Bikini Kill. “Rebel Girl". Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah, Kill Rock Stars, 1993.

Song references from when I first meet Jamie until the car chase begins:

Screaming Trees. “Nearly Lost You.” Sweet Oblivion, Epic, 1992.

Presidents of the United States of America. “Some Postman.” Love Everybody, PUSA Inc., 2004.

Soundgarden. “The Day I Tried to Live.” Superunknown, A&M, 1994.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience. “Hey Joe” (Billy Roberts). The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Track, 1967.

7 Year Bitch. “Kiss My Ass Goodbye.” Viva Zapata!, C/Z, 1994.

Modest Mouse. “Fly Trapped in a Jar.” We Were Dead before the Ship Even Sank, Epic, 2007.

Green River. “Swallow My Pride.” Come On Down EP, Homestead, 1985.

Sweaty Nipples. “Knuckle Farm.” Bug Harvest, Megaforce, 1994.

(Bit of an error on including Sweaty Nipples. They played in Seattle frequently enough that I thought they were a local band until just now. They're actually from Portland. Still a good, underappreciated band, though).

In addition to being a love letter to Seattle, my story is a coded love letter to its music scene and fans. Buried in the words of my story are a whole bunch of Easter-egg references to songs by Western Washington musical artists over various decades.

Some of the references, like Pearl Jam's "Better Man" or Heart's "These Dreams," may seem obvious. Others are from more obscure artists that don't have much national recognition, but even in those cases the song would be known to most fans of the band: for example, not everyone knows Bikini Kill, but everyone who knows Bikini Kill knows "Rebel Girl."

Here are the first few references, taking things up to my initial encounter with Agent Flynn. And yes, all of these are referenced (mostly by song title) in the text.

Sir Mix-A-Lot. “Seattle Ain’t Bullshittin’.” Mack Daddy, Def American, 1992.

Sleater-Kinney. “No Cities to Love.” No Cities to Love, Sub Pop, 2015.

Harvey Danger. “Flagpole Sitta.” Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone?, Arena Rock Recording Company, 1997.

Foo Fighters. “Long Road to Ruin.” Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, Roswell, RCA, 2007.

Bing Crosby. “Where the Blue of the Night” (1931). The Definitive Collection, Geffen, 2006.

Heart. “These Dreams.” Heart, Capitol, 1985.

Pearl Jam. “Just Breathe.” Backspacer, Monkeywrench, 2009.