Quote by LYFBUZ

Oops forgot the pic, this is the first one. The girl is almost dead on, so is the room but I was trying to get a more ancient looking doorway. I think AI interprets "ancient" as Roman or Greek.

Wow. Impressive!

Quote by LYFBUZ

Great. Now I'm distracted by the butt plug. 1495 words and I even put together an AI cover image. It still fucking sucks....but I realized this is my first completed story since Dec 2024 so I'm just gonna get it in.

Does this happen to you folks? I have over 100 stories almost done but I always start a new one instead of finishing the almost complete stories.

Butt plugs ARE distracting. lol

I am the opposite. I have around a dozen stories that I keep writing and re-writing. Several have the same characters, so when I make a major change, there is a trickle down effect and I NEED to then re-re-write everything. At some point, I just need to step away from those characters and start writing some stand-alone stuff that I can release into the wild and never look back.

Quote by LYFBUZ

Maybe it just needs a butt plug.

Yes! When in doubt, add a butt plug. I think that saved my comp entry. 😂

And Bear, I will take a cup of the Lumberjack with a splash of cream.

Quote by KimmiBeGood

Drinks are on me tonight!!

Had a fruitful visit to the home office. :)

Thanks, Kimmi.

Hey Bear, make mine a Midwinter Night's Dram, neat, please.

Quote by KimmiBeGood

Hey you, your screenname is kinda a mouthful… which can be good , but is there something shorter we can call you by in here?

Let’s go with Cog. Short and sweet. 😊

Quote by JamesLlewellyn
Welcome, Paddling! Just out of curiosity, who is Cognito, and how do you paddle in them?

I realized last night where you were going with that Bear….

In my case, paddling is not, um, a spanking thing. Not much a BDSM guy here. Light bondage, blindfolds, sure… But I digress. Paddling is a water sports thing - mind out of the gutter; eyes up here! - like kayaking, paddling boarding, and surfing.

Incognito… Well, there are some scary folks out there and I tend to be a private person.

Perhaps I should have considered the crowd here when I came up with a username on Lush. lol

Anyways, it’s good to be here! I am not a “tea in the morning” guy. I will take a cup of the President's Choice Maple Coffee, with a dash of cream, please!

Sorry about the comp rejection. Fortunately, you’ve got a week to make some changes. I am looking forward to reading your story!

Quote by Seeker4

Do other male Lushies get profile likes from seemingly random women? I assume they are scammers or "pick me girls" of some kind so I usually just glance at their profile (which is usually minimal) and forget about them. But I see some other men do respond so I wonder what the game really is.

Yes. I get several likes and a handful of random messages. Most simply say “hi” or “hey”.

When I first joined, I sometimes responded. Most were looking for coin. When I told them I didn’t have any, they would usually ask me to buy some. Yeah, not happening. And sketchy AF.

The funny thing is that some of the women were members. And some had even published several stories.

Quote by Seeker4

So I'm working on cover art for my advent story. And I give what I think is a fairly detailed prompt. And I got something different but that might still work. It's a topless woman kneeling on a beach. Except I asked for a woman in a bikini standing on a beach next to a kneeling man. Way to go AI. I tried some AI editing to add the man in and he looked like something out of a Picasso painting. And not a good one. I only went back to AI for this one because I was having trouble finding stock that fit.

I am looking forward to seeing it!

Quote by JamesLlewellyn

Welcome, Paddling! Just out of curiosity, who is Cognito, and how do you paddle in them?

Perhaps bring them on by as well? 🤣

My name is James, but everyone calls me Bear, owing to me being a Canadian Polar Bear and all.

Thanks, Bear!

Considering it was -15 degrees when I woke up, I am tempted to skip the coffee and go directly to that bottle of Jameson. But unfortunately, I’ve got a busy day ahead of me, so will take what Kimmi is having.

Quote by techgoddess

Just so you know…diehard Lions fan here. 😉

Well, FUCK. Now I will never get another story published on Lush. lol

I guess being a Lions fan is better than being a Vikings or Bears fan. 😊

Quote by David_LeRoy
They keep asking for pictures of my Christmas tree but evey time I look at that box I just can't get the energy up to open it to out it up. It seems rather pointless to go to all that effort now.

Tomorrow is a showdown between my Rams and the very scary Lions. And then Thursday they play the seahawks. Winning both of those is going to be virtually impossible.

I get it about the tree. Unless we have people coming to stay, we rarely put up a tree. We still put out some other decorations, but the tree… Yeah, that is a LOT of work.

And go Rams! As an avid Packers fan, anything the Rams can do to knock the Lions out of the playoff race… Well, I will be grateful! Granted, once we get into the post-season, my perception of the Rams may change. lol

Good morning, everyone! New here. Thought I’d share what I am drinking right now, as I try to warm-up. It was a brisk -6 (felt like -23) this morning when I woke up a few hours ago. I have a feeling I’ll be drinking hot coffee all day!

Also. here is a little Saturday themed honkey-tonk music for your listening pleasure.

One of the more challenging things has been to get continuity across multiple covers for a multi-chapter story. The error I kept getting is “please verify that this is NOT a real person”. So now I need to add things like “fictional character” and “over 18” to all of my prompts. lol

Quote by sprite

you could, if you wanted. fyi. the mod team would probably murder you if you do, but you could.

So we should just add a note “sprite said it was okay”

Quote by KimmiBeGood

My sis just got certified in some sort of AI prompting. Her company wants them all to integrate it into their projects, debugging, coding, etc.

My company is doing the exact same thing.

Quote by KimmiBeGood

This is one that I could only create once, then it caught on that I’d sneakily worded my prompt to get it to create a nude and it wouldn’t do any alterations.

I get that! I had ChatGPT create this image. When I prompted it to lighten the image or make it a little more life-like, nope. Content violations. In my head I am screaming “I am asking you to update something that YOU generated!”

And yes, I now realize that ChatGPT is not the right tool for this. Using ChatGPT for this is the equivalent of trying to find vintage ‘70s porn on Netflix. You might find a random documentary. But you aren’t going to find the full version of Debbie Does Dallas.

Quote by Seeker4

So I have one of my stories set up in Drafts. Still have to end it properly but I have a couple hundred words to play with and some things I can rework to shorten it if the ending takes it over the 1500. Not really excited about it but I am more interested in it than the alternative.

Would it be frowned upon if, after the competition ends, all of us release “extended” versions of our stories? lol

Quote by AmuseBouche

Have some fun, and do your best, this is all. It is a little more nerve-wracking, but the experience is worth it to introduce your writing to as big an audience as you can here. The best of luck! 😘

I get the audience thing. My entry is on the verge of surpassing all of my other stories, combined! And I am seeing more people check out my other stories. As a result. I think I’ve doubled my number of followers in the past week!

Granted, I keep telling myself “I am not here to chase numbers. I am not here to chase numbers”. lol

Quote by Hughtheman

As someone who has entered competitions before, what has it been like? I'd been lying if I said I hadn't thought about entering, but is it more nerve-racking than a regular story for you?

I am in a unique situation. New to Lush. I am new to sharing my stories. That being said, I’ve been writing for over a year. Probably closer to two years. Both the stories I’ve published and several others have been in a perpetual state of write/rewrite/rewrite for what feels like forever.

1500 words is a third of what of what I usually write. And I like character development. So writing something brand new, short, in a different category than I’ve written previously, and giving myself a 24 window to write, rewrite, and edit… I even pivoted from my usual third person over to first person. It was a fun challenge!

Being the first competition on Lush since I’ve joined, I am curious… How is this one different from previous editions?

Quote by Evocative

Cover art in my opinion is just as important if not more so than the story itself. Same with the tagline. Why? The cover image can convey everything your story is trying to tell. I’m sure at one point in life you’ve heard the proverb “a picture is worth a thousand words.” It’s because that one image can convey your thoughts, feelings, questions, statements, etc, more effectively than words can. People are visual creatures, that’s how we primarily process the world around us.

This is helpful.

When I published my first stories on Lush, the cover art was pretty bad. It fit the story, but it was dark and gritty.

I was curious about how cover art impacts clicks/reads. The fact that the story was a five chapter monstrosity (25.000+ words) probably played didn’t help.

Up until now, my entire AI experience has been in ChatGPT and Copilot.

I recently updated the cover art. Because I was using ChatGPT, getting anything beyond PG-13 was challenging. Even prompting ChatGPT to “make a smile look more seductive” generated 'content violation’ errors. It was frustrating. I ended up with cover art I am happy with, despite still appearing a little “cartoonish”.

It looks like I really just need to branch out beyond ChatGPT, learn how to use some photo processing tools, and rethink my approach.

New member and new(ish) author here. I’ve been writing for a little over a year. Prior to finding Lush, I never even thought about cover art.

Before I published my first story, I wasn’t sure where to start. Then I saw a forum post that said it was acceptable to use AI to create cover art. I’ve been using ChatGPT. The amount of time I’ve spent is borderline embarrassing. Between the time it takes to render images, coupled with the number of “content violations” I’ve encountered… Yeah. Like I said, embarrassing.

Yes, I realize that there are probably some better options outside of ChatGPT. I just have not explored them yet.

I am curious… How important is cover art to you? How much time/effort do you put into your cover art?

Quote by KatieTheWriter

I had one idea which was a Wankvent calendar but started writing and realised there is no way I could do it justice in 1500 words. Luckily the inspiration pervert in my brain is working overtime on Christmas and I've now settled on another idea I'm quite excited about. Just need a bit of teasing and polishing.

I get it. The 1500 word limit was challenging for me. I was able to get my story from 1880 words down to 1499. Unfortunately, I feel that the longer version was much better.

Quote by AAnna

I will be sending mine in soon. It will be called "Bree's Tree". Did I win yet?

It depends on what Bree does with her, um, tree. 😈

First comp entry submitted! Elf on a Shelf, as promised.

I just thought of a second idea. Each has an “elf” on a “shelf”. Now I need to decide which direction to go!

Quote by Jen

I'm debating a bonus point for any Elf On A Shelf adjacent titles.

Sprite on a Kite

Slut in a Hut

Betty on a Jetty

No need for an adjacent title! After a few hours of thinking about it, I’ve landed on a title - Elf on a Shelf. The 1500 word limit is going to be challenging. I’ve got a few hours next week to make it work.