But I seem incapable of starting a story and finishing with the characters in one short story. I have gotten 3 stories written, well almost they all need a little more polish before they can see the light of day. But already I have at least one sequel for each story. And one story has at least 5 subsequent scenes involving the same two main characters. That’s a novella of 20,000 words in the making.

The same thing happened to me last year when I wrote Seducing a Girl. It was meant to be a stand alone short story, but ended up being 7,000 words long and the first chapter of a Justine. I will be finishing Justine just as soon as I can figure out how to make the three major strands in the story/characters intertwine into a cohesive whole.

But the good thing about writing these new stories, and Seducing a Girl, is that they had a beginning, middle and end of their own and so can be enjoyed as stand alone stories without you, my loyal readers, having to wait 2, or 3, years for me to finish the complete novel.

So look out over the next few weeks to reading these new stories as I post them here on my blog. Subscribe to my newsletter and be the first to read these new stories. Or don’t subscribe and read them a week or so later

I wrote a total of 2,614 words which averages at 373.43 words per day. However only 1,718 words were in Alice the other 896 where on other stories. (I’ve actually lost count of the number of stories/novels I’m currently “working” on.) Either way I have not managed 1,000 per day.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the only way I can improve my daily word count is to get up earlier in the morning. I find that if I get an early start I can get a good bit done before the kids wake and the daily routines kick in. I’ve not been very successful in integrating my writing time into daily life. I have also tried staying up late but find I am often too tired to work properly.  So I’ll will have to make extra time by getting up earlier.

Now, I am not naturally an early riser. I have had to get up early in the past (5:30 – 6:00 am) but the longest I’ve managed to maintain it was 6-8 weeks. (You would think that after 6 weeks getting out of bed early would have become an ingrained habit, but not with me.) However now I know that I only have to become an early riser for 3 weeks, until I complete my September Resolution, and also that I am getting up to do something that I want to do (As opposed to previous periods of early rising where I was getting out of bed to commence a very long commute to work.) I am hoping that I will be able to get out of bed at 6:00am for the next 3 weeks. And that once out of bed(notice I don’t use the word awake) I will be able to do productive work.

I’ll let you know how it works out here on my blog. So subscribe to my RSS feed for updates.

So my plan is to write 1,000 words a day for the next month and complete Alice. Biased on the size of completed chapters I have a little over 29,000 words to go.

I am taking my inspiration from both the National Novel Writing Month and from 30 Days to Success by Steve Pavlina. I know it is possible to write 1,000 words a day and I know that setting a limit of only doing it for one month means that it does not seem like such a daunting task, like a complete lifestyle change would be. But then as I am going through my Mid Life Crises maybe a complete lifestyle change would do me some good

I am also thinking of publicly exposing myself by posting my word count for each day here on my blog. Of course I will have no problem posting on those days that I achieve, and exceed, my 1,000 word target. But how would I feel about days like yesterday where I only wrote 323 words of Alice. I also wrote 298 words of my Cinderella story and bits and pieces of other works so the total word count for the day wasn’t too bad. But I don’t want to bore my blog readers with posts along the lines of “Oh dear, I only wrote 128 words today, Woe is me.”

But we shall see.

Country Road

I have just turned 42 and have been thinking about my life, and my death, for the past while now.

I guess I am going through my Mid Life Crises. I am a bit late as the latest statistics that I can find show a life expectancy of 75.1 years for Irish Males. That would mean a “mid life” of 35.5. So at statistically at 42 I am already more than half way through my life. Even so I still feel, and act, like I am only 19.

However it doesn’t matter in the long run if I live for another two, twenty, or two hundred years(though I’d prefer the latter) because in the thousands of years of recorded, and unrecorded, history of mankind it is such a small moment. And in the billions of years since the Earth formed my lifetime is less than the blink of an eye.

But mainly I am sad because life is like an unfolding story and I am always keen to find out what happens next. And once I am dead I will never get to see the ending.

At least those who have commented and e-mailed me about Seducing a girl. About half of you seem to think that more will be seen of the girl on the couch and that she might play some further part in Justine’s and John’s story. This had not been my plan. She was supposed to have just a “walk on” part. She was never going to be seen again.(Look people, I didn’t even bother giving her a name.) But now that several people have mentioned that they would like to see more of her I can’t get ideas for her out of my head.
There is also another “walk on” part for a girl towards the end of Justine, and now she has that part as well. She fits the part and now there is an extra thread running through the story’s universe, so it is all good.
She also now has a name, “Julie”. Originally she was just going to be a sex object for Justine to use to play with John, and you don’t need a name for an object. Now you guys have got me thinking about her she has become a “real” person with a name and she wants her own story line!
However I don’t have space for her story line in the novel Justine. Except for her two brief appearances at the party in the beginning and towards the end, in a scene that shows a fundamental change in Justine, but which I can not describe without telling you half the story of the novel, there is no space for her. So she has ended up having her own “mini series”. I have a story outline for her that is about 4 chapters long (25,000 words). Now all I have to do is find the time to write it!
If you look at the sidebar on my site you will see a section titled “Work in Progress” there are currently 3 novels listed with a progress meter for each.
However I now have about 20 other stories started, or outlined with a plot and an plan. But I can’t work on every idea I have or I would never get anything finished. So only the 3 stories I am currently working on get a progress meter.
So if you see “Julie’s Story” popping up as a progress meter in my sidebar you know that she jumped up and grabbed me by the throat and won’t let go until she has her story told.

I can’t place the blame entirely on my readers. I did after all spend most of last weekend working on plotting/developing/outlining and writing some key scenes of another novel entitled “Domestic Service”. Again this is a brief flash of inspiration that grew into an entire novel almost over night. It started with a couple of images of some Manga that I downloaded from the Internet (Ragnarock City if you must know) and some of the costumes caught something in my imagination and out popped a future history of an overcrowded earth, with 99% of the population living in poverty, not knowing where their next meal was coming from, and the elite 1% living in luxury enclaves behind hi-tech security in a 21st century paradise: flying to orbital space station spas for week long parties, having the latest medical procedures and their every whim administered to. The story is about a young girl, called Aimee, who enters “domestic service” as a sex slave in one of the luxury enclaves to escape the life of poverty that awaits her on the outside.
However Aimee is also a character with a mind of her own. Not content with being a sex slave in one novel she has demanded a trilogy where she ends up leading a revolution that overthrows the corrupt social order and the whole story is written “by her” as she sits in her prison cell awaiting the verdict of a tribunal set up to try her for crimes against humanity.
However Aimee’s story is now parked and I am once again concentrating on writing Terminal Singularity. Then I’ll finish Justine and then I’ll finish Alice. (At least that is the current plan.)

So Happy birthday Julie, you are now a character with her own story. And you get to star along side the third most important character in Justine. I say he is the third most important character because he plays a pivotal role in the development of Justine’s and John’s relationship. Although he still doesn’t have a name, he is just called “Master” in the story. But “Master” does suit his character. We will eventually see how Master instructs Julie in the finer arts of BDSM submission and self esteem. I say “we” because I don’t quite know what is going to happen in that story because it seems that all my characters have a mind of their own.
But I think I am looking forward to the adventure.

The fact is that most people who come to my blog come to read my free novels and stories and not my blog posts. Looking at my stats I find that individual chapters of my novels get 90-100 views a day, by best blog post gets 4 or 5 views. So most people are not reading my blog.
So for the most part I am pretty much relaxed about posting only once or twice per week. Quality is much better than quantity. There are enough spammers on the internet, I do not need to spam my own blog in a furtile attempt to attract readers.

Sci-Fi
Well Sci-Fi is for kids. Yes I know that there is a lot of adult Sci-Fi written, but there is still a large percentage of the general population that associates Sci-Fi with adolescent adventures. And of course there are quite a lot of adult Sci-Fi novels that are adventure stories, and I enjoy reading them. But for people who don’t you can still get some negative reactions when you say that you not only enjoy reading Sci-Fi, but that you write it as well.

Romance
Where do I start on this one. For an adult male to admit not only to liking romance but too actually writing romance stories is totally unbelievable for some people. I get all sorts of reactions from people, but most of the reactions stem from the fact that most people’s idea of a romance writer is Barbara Cartland and they just do not know how to handle the fact that I, a heterosexual, married(with kids), 41 year old man, write romance stories.
Heck even my wife didn’t believe that I would do it until I did it.

Erotic
Well that is just another word for hard-core porn. End of story. I don’t even try to convince people that don’t know, or won’t accept that erotica is not pornography, that I what I write is completely different from hard-core porn and that pornography and erotica are worlds apart. As far as some people are concerned I am just a filthy pornographer trying to dress up his smut in an arty-farty guise.

So when I tell people that I write Sci-Fi erotic romances the most common reaction is that they think that I am making a joke. That is where I usually leave it. If they ask “No, really what do you do.” I tell them “No, really I write Sci-Fi erotic romance stories.” Once they realise that I am serious all the above mentioned stereotypical reactions try to got off inside their heads at the same time usually leading to totally bemused puzzlement.
At which point I usually put them out of their misery by saying “It sells very well.”
And they suddenly relax because I am not some weird pervert, I am simply doing it for the money and they quickly move the conversation on to another subject. But I know that I will continue to get strange looks from people and there will always be a weary reserve from them.
Remember that when people ask “What do you do?”. They don’t really care what you do, they are just looking for a label to put you in a box. So for the most part I tell people that I make web sites and keep the Sci-Fi erotic romances as my guilty little secret.

Here is a fragment of the scene when she achieves “enlightenment”:

“So he never loved me,” Justine.
“I can’t say what he felt,” Master replies.
Master and Justine are silent for a moment
“So do you love me?” Justine
Master sighed, “What is love?”
—————-
“Are you asking do I like you? do I need you? Do I desire you? Do I want set you free?
Justine looks up, “Do you want to set me free?”
Master smiles, “I can’t set you free. No person can set another free. Only you can set yourself free.”
“He enslaved me.”
“No one can enslave you, only you can make yourself a slave.”
“I didn’t want to be his slave.”
“Then why did you stay with him?”
“Because I loved him.”
“Did you?”
“Are you going to tell me that you know what love is, and what I felt wasn’t true love!”
“Since time began countless philosophers, poets and general layabouts have tried to define what love is. None have ever succeeded. You can’t define love, you can only feel love.”
“I felt love for him.”
“Did he feel love for you?”
Justine started to answer, then paused.
“No,” she answered after a long moment. “He didn’t love me. He doesn’t love himself, so how could he have ever love me.”
Master smiled, “Now that you have looked into your heart of hearts and seen the truth, now you can set yourself free.”
“And once I am free?” Justine looked up at Master once more.
Master broke into the widest smile Justine had ever seen. “Once you are free, then you can fine true love.”

“Master” might at some stage get a name.

It is only a fragment of a first draft, and it is of storyline that happens before the action in Justine, so I will probably never finish the scene. But after telling you the other day that she had had a fight with her first lover that “tore her apart emotionally and left her slumped on the ground crying her eyes out” I thought that you might like to know that her story has a happy ending.

And for me taking that first step is the easiest thing in the world to. It is taking the second step, and the third step and the fourth step, step after step, day after day, even year after year, that is the hard part.
I have taken so many first steps that I’ve probably completed 1,000 “1,000 mile journeys”. But because they have all been first steps I have completed relatively little. I have just walked 1,000 little steps around and around in a circle. An uneven staggered circle as a burst of enthusiasm propels me in one direction, and then the next big idea propels me in the opposite.
And so at the start of each journey I resolve to myself that this time I will complete my journey. I will make a map, a plan of what I want to archive. I will list my goals. I will do a to-do list. I will take all the necessary steps needed to complete my journey.
But even then I don’t want to take all those little steps. I want efficiency. I want speed. I want instant gratification.
I don’t want 1,000 little steps. I want one great leap forward. One giant step to take me right to the end. One lotto win that will make my life perfect.
I have started so many journeys not looking at all the little steps, but looking only at the result. “I am looking at the big picture,” I tell myself. I visualise myself standing on the summit of the mountain, not bothering with all the rivers and gullies that stand in my way.
I look for one burst of enthusiasm, one big jump that will take me over all those little rivers and gullies. And then I will magically find myself at the rainbow’s end.
But all those big giant steps look so big. Each one is such a big leap. Each one such a irrevocable commitment. Each one so momentous that I just can’t make myself take the plunge. I just stand, tethering on the edge, until my next brilliant idea takes me back in the opposite direction.
But now I have realised that they are all the same journey. All those false starts are my journey. I have only one life, there is only one journey and each day I take another step, regardless of whether or not I wish it. Each day I am one step closer to the end. I get no choice in whether or not to take each step. But I do get a choice of what direction I take. Each day I get a choice of doing what I want with that day.
Now I no longer look for that great leap forward. I no longer want to suddenly be transported to the end. I want to take one little step forward: write one post on my blog, write one page on my novel, help my children discover one new, exciting thing about the wonderful life they are leading.
And that is all I need to do. Just take one little step in the direction I want to go in. And enjoy each and every moment of this wonderful life that I am privileged to live.
And in due time I will reach the end of my journey, as all journeys must come to an end. But in the meantime I intend to enjoy as many of those little steps as I can possibly squeeze in to my life.

While children’s TV shows and movies, especially those featuring superheros and supervillains, are primarily aimed at entertainment, they do have some educational qualities to redeem them.
For instance take the good role model that the evil villain gives to young impressionable children.
Week after week the evil villain tries to take over the world. He (occasionally she) thinks up some evil scheme, invests lots of time and money building advanced machines and working out to the last detailed how to neutralise the superhero, who is the only person who stands between them and total world domination.
Week after week the supervillain gets off to a great start. Catching the superhero by surprise he defeats him once, twice, even three times. The evil villain believes that this time he has got it right, he has left no stone unturned, he has thought of every angle, there is no loophole for the superhero to escape.
But week after week just as the evil villain is about to achieve his victory, just as total power is within his grasp, the superhero bounces back and in one unexpected, cataclysmic plot twist, the superhero defeats the villain at the eleventh hour.
On the surface this might seem to be a simplistic, even stereotypical, story of good versus evil.
But from the evil villain’s point of view it is a story, week after week, encouraging him to never give up on his dream. The evil villain pursues his dream of total world power week after week with dogged persistence.
Remember the “hero” has to win every week, the evil villain only has to win once. By that I do not mean to imply some prophecy of doom. What I mean is while you might fail 99 times, as long as you have worked hard, followed your dream and given it your best shot you are not a failure.
In the end you only have to succeed once to be a success.
So take a leaf from Dr. Evil’s super-villain’s handbook and never give up. As long as you can see your goal you can reach it.

Believe it. Achieve it.

There is nothing wrong with porn. I myself read stories posted on web sites and news groups all the time. And when I first got board band Internet access I subscribed to a couple of Internet porn sites. I did what most people(Men) seem to do, which is to subscribe for the 30 or 60 days no recurring billing option and download as much as you can before your subscription runs out. Then ,after a couple of weeks, you find 100Gb of your 120Gb disk drive is consumed by pornographic photos and video files and you when you download a new file you start to think “haven’t I seen this one before”, you begin to question the wisdom of this strategy.
You begin to realise the meaning of “quality over quantity”.

There is a great benefit of the written word, you can store hours and hours and hours of reading in the same space as 30 mins of video. And when the writer’s imagination, unfettered by the limitations of low budget porn shoots, resonates with the readers imagination you will always get the highest quality of porn possible.

Of course different words mean different things to different people and whether you find my work either literary or erotic comes down to your own personal taste.

Does Google hate me? Or does the Google spider not appreciate the literary merit of my work?

On my old site I had Page Ranks of between 2 and 3, once a page even got to 4. My old site had a lot less content (just 3 chapters of my novel Alexandra), but Google thought it rated higher.

I have noticed over the past few days that I have found a few sites with PR of zero. Maybe they have been there all along and I have just started to notice them now that I have joined their ranks. A bit like when you buy a new car and you start to notice the same make and model car all over the place. They’ve always been there, but now that you have one as well you start to notice the others.

Looks like my dream of making a million from my web site has not gotten off to a great start.

There are some I can understand such as authors promoting their books. Others that took me by surprise such as how to “get back with your Ex” and separately ads for sites explaining how men think and how women think about love and relationships, so that you can be more successful on the dating scene.

But there are other such as adverts such as Chapter 7 bankruptcy and fine Italian shaving sets that are a complete mystery to me.

Of course with Google’s targeting of their adverts you may get completely different adverts to the ones I see. But still it is interesting to be reading about something and to see an advert for something related, but sup prising, or even for something completely unrelated.