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Looking back: I started writing a year ago today
13 years ago
This is probably gonna end up as a really long journal. Fair warning. So here's the important part first: Another chapter of Dragon Ranch is next. It's the "finale”. Gonna be a long chapter. After that, another chapter of The Persistent Dragon is on the to-do list.
Tl;DR is.... I realized I started writing a year ago today, and it's crazy to see what's happened in that year.
~When I started writing a year ago, I did so because I got continuously pissed off at nearly every story I found on SoFurry. Frankly, every time I'd go and find something I'd want to read, the horrible spelling, grammar, and general quality of writing made it impossible to enjoy. I've been through quite a number of stories that I just had to quit on half-way in. One fateful (dare I say, infamous) day, I got this revelation that I could probably do better than what was available, even though I had no practice writing fiction before. However, I put off the idea for a long time because I didn't want to be an active member of the fandom. There's a simple reason why: I don't identify with furries at ALL. I don't role play, don't have a murrrsona, I don't even think think furry art is super-cool or whatever. Dragons? Meh. To me, they're just a fantasy creature that I like seeing in porn (that's something I'm still a bit ashamed of, to be honest). I still think it's funny when people are surprised that I haven't read Eragon, or seen Dragonheart, or played Spyro, or stuff like that.
Well, weeks later and against my better judgment I bit the bullet and started writing.
~I began Dragon Ranch as a 1-shot story with only 2 characters. It was supposed to be nothing but a quick, simple sex story without any cringe-inducing plot. Even back then I realized that no one reads plot anyway. I sure as heck didn't. I thought plot was dumb and pointless because people read erotic stories with their dicks and not their brains. :P
~I ended up with a very short, simple story of a guy getting a BJ from a dragon (lol I can't type that with a straight face). I remember I went through a lot of thoughts like "Oh hell I am such a pervert. I can't believe what I'm writing!”.... but I published it anyway, expecting it to get a few views and what-not. I still remember my surprise when it got over 400 views in the first day, along with a slew of favs and comments. By then, I was already working on more of the story, realizing that this is pretty fun to do.
~Let's fast forward a year from then. Now, Dragon Ranch has around 10,000 views and is probably in the top 1% of popular stories on SoFurry. Crazy! Now, I don't spout off those numbers with pride, but with shock and surprise. Hell, I don't even think it deserves the attention. Looking back at it now, I don't think it's particulary well-written or special. I look at Dragon Ranch and keep thinking "how the heck did it get up there?”. I think part of what helped it was that I kept writing more. What meant to be a small, stand-alone story is now on 12 chapters and it still hasn't been finished. Also, The Persistent Dragon was meant to be three chapters and was supposed to contain a lot of plot, but it's now at 4 chapters and I haven't gotten around to ANY of that intended plot yet.
The reason why both stories keep getting bloated is simple: I keep on filling the majority of each chapter with really long porn scenes and there's no room for anything else. Lol.
~Like I said, I started writing a year ago. I'm surprised to admit that in that year, I gained around 650 watchers on SoFurry and over 1000 on FurAffinity. Now, those numbers are decieving... most of those FA watchers are from Narse's and Syrinoth's fan art. So it's not like they're all there for the stories or anything, lol. When Narse uploaded his fan art and gave me that huge (and very appreciated) shout-out to my stories, that brought in a ton of traffic.
~But with that in mind, it's even MORE crazy for me to think that very well-known artists would be drawing me art for free in the first place. If you told me a year ago that I'd have Narse drawing me free art, I'd laugh at you. But since a year ago, I've talked with many well-known and popular artists and have watched a number of them draw on multiple occasions. Hell, I even have Narse's phone number. Holy crap.
~Here's the funny thing: looking back at my stories that I've written a year ago, I find them all horribly written and I cringe when I try to read them. Seriously! I think its funny that I thought the stories were fine when I first published them, cause now I see them as just plain awful. Dragon Ranch is awkwardly written and the characters are ridiculous. The Persistent Dragon is even worse. Gosh, Jake is such a horribly written character. Any of my other stories that I wrote in the first few months of my writing "career” I haven't even tried to go back and read. It's funny to me to see people say these same stories are wonderful and well-written. Maybe I'm just a harsh critic of my own work, but I think I just have have high standards. Sometimes I get urges to go back and fix everything I see, but I can't see much point in all the work involved when most people have already read through them.
~But there's an alternative: I've considered expanding these stories into a more legitimate piece of writing instead of simply editing what I have. I'm talking about fleshing out the stories and characters and wraping everything around a coherent plot. The next thing to do would be to package the in a novel format and present it to one of the few furry erotica publishers out there for publishing. This is only an idea, though, and I don't have any current plans to actually follow through with it. This is mostly because I can't imagine it being worth the effort. The market for a human-dragon erotic novel probably doesn't exist, or if it does, it wouldn't be large enough to be profitable for me.
~A year ago, I doubt I'd believe you if you told me that I'd be making decent money writing porn for people, either! I actually manged to pay for a good portion of this semester's college tuition with the commission money I've saved up. Thanks so much!
~One of the classes I'm taking is a creative writing class, which I would never have taken if I didn't get started in this furry fiction nonsense in the first place. I've written a lot of short story exercises for this class which my prof thinks are very impressive, and I'm now looking at modifying them into larger works and getting them published. These stories certainly have nothing to do with dragons (thank goodness)! I don't intend to write either dragons or anything furry-related at all. I don't know where this pursuit of getting published will lead me, but regardless I have this place to thank as the springboard for this journey. It's funny that looking back at all of this, I've actually started the beginnings of a writing career. I don't know if I'll actually follow through with it, but for now it does not hurt to explore my options. :)
I think that's it. Man, I knew I'd be writing a lot. I am so, so bad at being short and concise in my writing! Sorry!
I don't expect too many people to read this but if you did, I thank you for it. :)
Tl;DR is.... I realized I started writing a year ago today, and it's crazy to see what's happened in that year.
~When I started writing a year ago, I did so because I got continuously pissed off at nearly every story I found on SoFurry. Frankly, every time I'd go and find something I'd want to read, the horrible spelling, grammar, and general quality of writing made it impossible to enjoy. I've been through quite a number of stories that I just had to quit on half-way in. One fateful (dare I say, infamous) day, I got this revelation that I could probably do better than what was available, even though I had no practice writing fiction before. However, I put off the idea for a long time because I didn't want to be an active member of the fandom. There's a simple reason why: I don't identify with furries at ALL. I don't role play, don't have a murrrsona, I don't even think think furry art is super-cool or whatever. Dragons? Meh. To me, they're just a fantasy creature that I like seeing in porn (that's something I'm still a bit ashamed of, to be honest). I still think it's funny when people are surprised that I haven't read Eragon, or seen Dragonheart, or played Spyro, or stuff like that.
Well, weeks later and against my better judgment I bit the bullet and started writing.
~I began Dragon Ranch as a 1-shot story with only 2 characters. It was supposed to be nothing but a quick, simple sex story without any cringe-inducing plot. Even back then I realized that no one reads plot anyway. I sure as heck didn't. I thought plot was dumb and pointless because people read erotic stories with their dicks and not their brains. :P
~I ended up with a very short, simple story of a guy getting a BJ from a dragon (lol I can't type that with a straight face). I remember I went through a lot of thoughts like "Oh hell I am such a pervert. I can't believe what I'm writing!”.... but I published it anyway, expecting it to get a few views and what-not. I still remember my surprise when it got over 400 views in the first day, along with a slew of favs and comments. By then, I was already working on more of the story, realizing that this is pretty fun to do.
~Let's fast forward a year from then. Now, Dragon Ranch has around 10,000 views and is probably in the top 1% of popular stories on SoFurry. Crazy! Now, I don't spout off those numbers with pride, but with shock and surprise. Hell, I don't even think it deserves the attention. Looking back at it now, I don't think it's particulary well-written or special. I look at Dragon Ranch and keep thinking "how the heck did it get up there?”. I think part of what helped it was that I kept writing more. What meant to be a small, stand-alone story is now on 12 chapters and it still hasn't been finished. Also, The Persistent Dragon was meant to be three chapters and was supposed to contain a lot of plot, but it's now at 4 chapters and I haven't gotten around to ANY of that intended plot yet.
The reason why both stories keep getting bloated is simple: I keep on filling the majority of each chapter with really long porn scenes and there's no room for anything else. Lol.
~Like I said, I started writing a year ago. I'm surprised to admit that in that year, I gained around 650 watchers on SoFurry and over 1000 on FurAffinity. Now, those numbers are decieving... most of those FA watchers are from Narse's and Syrinoth's fan art. So it's not like they're all there for the stories or anything, lol. When Narse uploaded his fan art and gave me that huge (and very appreciated) shout-out to my stories, that brought in a ton of traffic.
~But with that in mind, it's even MORE crazy for me to think that very well-known artists would be drawing me art for free in the first place. If you told me a year ago that I'd have Narse drawing me free art, I'd laugh at you. But since a year ago, I've talked with many well-known and popular artists and have watched a number of them draw on multiple occasions. Hell, I even have Narse's phone number. Holy crap.
~Here's the funny thing: looking back at my stories that I've written a year ago, I find them all horribly written and I cringe when I try to read them. Seriously! I think its funny that I thought the stories were fine when I first published them, cause now I see them as just plain awful. Dragon Ranch is awkwardly written and the characters are ridiculous. The Persistent Dragon is even worse. Gosh, Jake is such a horribly written character. Any of my other stories that I wrote in the first few months of my writing "career” I haven't even tried to go back and read. It's funny to me to see people say these same stories are wonderful and well-written. Maybe I'm just a harsh critic of my own work, but I think I just have have high standards. Sometimes I get urges to go back and fix everything I see, but I can't see much point in all the work involved when most people have already read through them.
~But there's an alternative: I've considered expanding these stories into a more legitimate piece of writing instead of simply editing what I have. I'm talking about fleshing out the stories and characters and wraping everything around a coherent plot. The next thing to do would be to package the in a novel format and present it to one of the few furry erotica publishers out there for publishing. This is only an idea, though, and I don't have any current plans to actually follow through with it. This is mostly because I can't imagine it being worth the effort. The market for a human-dragon erotic novel probably doesn't exist, or if it does, it wouldn't be large enough to be profitable for me.
~A year ago, I doubt I'd believe you if you told me that I'd be making decent money writing porn for people, either! I actually manged to pay for a good portion of this semester's college tuition with the commission money I've saved up. Thanks so much!
~One of the classes I'm taking is a creative writing class, which I would never have taken if I didn't get started in this furry fiction nonsense in the first place. I've written a lot of short story exercises for this class which my prof thinks are very impressive, and I'm now looking at modifying them into larger works and getting them published. These stories certainly have nothing to do with dragons (thank goodness)! I don't intend to write either dragons or anything furry-related at all. I don't know where this pursuit of getting published will lead me, but regardless I have this place to thank as the springboard for this journey. It's funny that looking back at all of this, I've actually started the beginnings of a writing career. I don't know if I'll actually follow through with it, but for now it does not hurt to explore my options. :)
I think that's it. Man, I knew I'd be writing a lot. I am so, so bad at being short and concise in my writing! Sorry!
I don't expect too many people to read this but if you did, I thank you for it. :)
And no, I do get writers block. Actually, more than that I really struggle with motivation when it comes to writing. Much of the time I find it really hard to force myself to write. I do my best writing when inspired, but times like that are rare.
Much like life in that sense.
Also, thoughts for people that wish to write? What have you learnt in the last year that writers and other people NEED to know?
In general, the best advice I could give anyone would be "show, don't tell." It's a common mantra passed around writing circles but it is so very important and something you can literally apply to EVERY sentence. You can write "Jeremy felt excited".... Or your could write "Grace watched as Jeremy's eyes lit up with excitement" and have it convey the same information much more effectively. I visualize everything I see when I write in my mind and I write down everything. Be descriptive. Be specific. Remember that reading is about imagination. Do a favor for your readers and lay out a visual scene for them that stirs up some vivid images in their mind.
Here's to whatever the future may hold!
Fuck it, says I. Bug smut ahoy.
Good luck with your story writing!
Thanks for the encouraging words. If nothing else the cheap porn will get the writing started and hopefully more legitimate work (i.e. something I could actually show to someone who knows my real name) will follow. Keep up the good work yourself, as it's hard to find feral dragoness stuff, written or illustrated.
I also hope you keep writing, but I can understand when life's more important priorities come up.
If you really get into it - try the clarion workshops - they're not free but worth every penny as you spend a week with master authors and more importantly - their publishing contacts.
I'm trying to pick up the pace of my writing but a full-time job and life doesn't leave much time.
Oh and writers are always hardest on themselves - each book practically has to be prised from new authors grasps as they want to keep improving them but once you realise a light relaxing read is what most people want, not 'wheel of time' 15+ books..no wonder poor Rob Jordan keeled over - the amount of work he must have had to keep all the plot-lines together and separate was what surely killed him.
I find it hard enough to go back and read through to make sure I'm not trampling previous canon works.
Alan dean foster is holding a masterclass here in april and yes, I have my ticket for that..
I'm not serious enough about this writing business to start thinking about paying for workshops. Maybe if I have something to stake it on, say... If I start pursuing a career or something, then I'd think about it.
And I thought I was the only one. To quote Vonnegut, Alone No More!!
(Insert silly scene here of lonely writer breaking down in sobby tears of joy, drenches
keyboard, shorts out laptop <Fizzle-ZAP!!>)
Metaphorically speaking, I'm sitting out here on a desert island six thousand miles
from the ass-end of Nowhere, population. what you can't count to one?
As distant from fur fandom as a whole as it may be possible to get. Or so it feels
on a good day.
An Arctic island too, considering the time of year. ('Will you goddamn polar bears get
off my lawn??!! And no, you can't yiff with the sled dogs!! Jeeze!! :- ) )
Anthro writing sunk it's fangs into me a few years back. Saw a pic of Bernal's Champagne.
Whoa. Eroticism aside, there is a *character* here. All else since is commentary.
There's a fascination for me to scribbling in this zone, a sense of rich possibility. Great
stories can be written here. I wanna do a few [hundred].
And I'm about as fannish as a dead brick. It shows. I already suspect this has gotten
me into serious trouble in some quarters. De nada. I'm not going to stop writing this
stuff, yiffy or otherwise.
(And is there another field of literature out there that's as frankly exuberant and easy
about sexuality? To maybe excess and splurting all over the damn screen, it seems
sometimes, and often written pretty crappily. So nu? This beats turgid and boring.)
But-but-but... I'm not a furry (in any meaningful sense). You neither (from the way
you put it). I can identify, understand, grok, what's going on in Furrydom, even cheer
at a lot of it. Not that I'll ever likely get to a con within the lifetime of the universe,
but if I ever do I suspect I'd enjoy trying out somebody's fursuit.
(Until I option a fur novel to Pixar or somebody I'll sure never own one. Given that
that novel would probably be about Champagne, that'll take Pixar out of the G-rated
market pretty swiftly, I must say. :- ) )
Still. This lack of furcred is a potential real problem. How to handle it: something
for other discussion.
The writing is what counts here. And you've only been at it for a year? Whoo, fooled
me (having read a couple of the Dragon Ranch pieces). And I think I know why, and I
think I can offer an insight into the success levels too.
Nobody ever remembered a story because the writer did a great job describing the
wallpaper in the living room.
Good stories whack us all in the muzzle because of the characters. Because the text
makes these people (or dragons) real to us. Because we're persuaded to *give* a
damn about who they are and what happens to them in the plot.
Well, a writer either has an intuitive sense about this or he or she doesn't. If you do,
it's often because you've read a megaton of good books where the writers pulled it off.
Ya know how it's done because you picked it up by osmosis.
And you sure as hell know when it's done badly. The work you've done with your dragons
is indeed porny up one side and down the other. Randy dragons; who'da thunk it? But
these characters clicked with the readers, You're writing these people to a standard
that's well above the average. It never occurred to you to do otherwise.
Bug smut ahoy. did somebody say? If the characters really schmeck those could be
some veery interesting stories. You have to notice how the best furotica around here
puts the characters first, makes them complex and rich, and *then* the panties are
ripped off. Regardless of who's wearing 'em.
Porn does have the virtue of being pretty easy to plot out, and there's market demand
for it. (Duh!) Because it's sexual, however, I don't think many writers place much
value on it, and with some reason. The Nobel Prize for Lit ain't ever going to go to
a yiffy tale. The basics of storytelling are shorted. Get to the panty-ripping scene.
That you don't think that way about your dragons is a whopping tell. By Jove yes,
start thumping on novel thoughts. And keep in mind the fact that anthro writing's
great strength is how it can create strong characters in picoseconds, that can
resonate easily with the readers. Or this is how I see it anyway.
And it works for non-fur readers too. I showed my Mom(!) one of the horniest
stories I've done recently (Don't Go Near The Sorceress), and knew what would
happen.
She loved it. The characters got to her instantly. The *story* succeeded on the
strength of their anthro nature. How about that?
I'm not really that worried/neurotic about not being particularly furry, wouldn't think it
needs to concern you much either. The writing is what counts. I've said it elsewhere:
are we able to do something great? The writer who keeps asking that, and working
it, probably will. If it's a fur story that ends up on the bestseller list, even better.
See you in Stockholm. Whoever gets there first. *
FB.
* Whether it's dragons or platinum-haired vixens that get us there.
And wouldn't it be a squee-hoot if happened that way? Whoo, fantasy... :- )
Has a cat fursona
"I'd enjoy trying out somebody's fursuit"
Heh.
Also, has anyone told you that your style of writing is very hard to follow? I'm sorry, but I'm having trouble making sense of much of it. It's very much like a stream of consciousness and I find it very hard to tell what you're trying to say sometimes because your points and topics wander all over the place. I'm sorry.
The dragon characters in my stories are why people enjoy them, yes. I've realized that. They have very animated and expressive mannerisms. I focus on what's not human about them and make a point to show it to the reader, instead of treating the characters as "funny shaped humans", like many, many writers tend to do with their non-human characters.... The only problem is my human characters are really crappy in comparison. For the most part they just serve to react to whatever dragon is in the story and they're otherwise pretty lifeless and don't have much purpose.
Should journal about why I do it (there's training backing it up).
We do meet on one point: the strength of character that all these dragons have.
That the human characters are less well-defined is not really a serious weakness,
IMHO. They're more foils for the dragons than anything else.
And it works great. It means you can show certain types of relationships
between [strong] dragon and human, and fairly easily. With strong human characters
this could be much harder. The sex would be more complicated.
Small closer point: cat avatar does imply cat fursona. But there isn't a fursona
to back it up. Might be someday. I do identify with that image pretty strongly.
Symbolic of my attitude: write sharp, and with a point.
(Granted, sometimes there's waaay the hell too many of them. )
FB.
PS: Think there's something important to the fandom about fursuits.
Must learn moah. Hard to see myself actually owning one, though. Where do
I find a six-foot tall knife? :- )
Haha, I know how that feels. I remember the first time I uploaded something explicit to FA, after sadly failing to find anything else like it. "No one else likes this stuff then? Now I feel even more embarrassed. Oh well." It was the first time I'd ever really shown anyone my work. A few people liked it, so hell, I figure if I'm going to continue making it, I might as well share it with the few who like it. Those "few people" are now considerably more numerous, and some of the submissions the top ~500 on FA and top ~60 on e621*. Gosh! I still feel a little weird sometimes talking about it or when I type to type in a description when submitting something. "Haha, what you're typing is about an animated video of a dude boning a dragon. Seriously! That's crazy bro."
*After extensive research**
**A few minutes screwing with search
Let me tell you, though... the worst of it is when I am sitting and watching an artist draw for me and they ask me what I want. XD And keep in mind this is in voice chat so I have to say it out loud. I still remember when Narse was drawing Nixi for me (for a piece that isn't finished yet) and he asked "So, how do you want her vagina to look?"
And the question caught me so off-guard I was silent for about a minute, stuttering words. XD
Much of the furry "culture" seems to celebrate sexual openness to the point that it almost becomes illogical. It still makes me uncomfortable when I talk about it, or when I see others say people commenting things like "Oh murr I would love to lick this dragon's asshole FOR HOURS and have him fart in my face." I'm like "lol wut." People tend to just let everything hang out when they find a company of like-minded individuals, and that goes double for the internet instead of face-to-face conversation. But it's become so open that nobody seems to remember what tact is anymore and everyone feels like they can tell the world about their sexual fantasies. Why is that stuff so common here? No one in real life will see a hot girl pass by and say "Oh man that girl's pussy must be so tight and warm and I would stick my dick between her legs and leave it there FOR HOURS."
... at least I hope no one talks like that in real life.
I think I would've burst out laughing at that. It's so blunt and straightforward. Like a hairdresser or something.
>It still makes me uncomfortable when I talk about it, or when I see others say people commenting things like "Oh murr I would love to lick this dragon's asshole FOR HOURS and have him fart in my face."
I'm never quite sure how to react to those kind of comments, even when I actually agree with them. I usually just laugh and play along if it's not too excessive. I'm fine with something broad and general like, "Yeah, dragons are sexy" (though even typing that still seems weird), but getting into details is awkward as hell.