For those members of the community which frequent the Amazon Kindle e-book store, Amazon has quietly decided to restrict the ability of users to make off-line backups of their Kindle library. This capability will be removed on February 26th.

To create a backup copy of an e-book in your library, go to the `Content Library` section of the `Account & Lists` menu (third menu from right in the top navigation bar. Once there, select the `Books` section from the tile listing or the `View` dropdown. Depending on the size of your library, you may wish to select the `Purchases` filter so you don't see all the sample books you've taken a glance at.

The next step in the process is to locate the title you wish to create a backup copy of. Under the `More Actions` menu for the title, select the `Download & Transfer via USB` option. If you have multiple (physical) Kindle devices, you will need to select one of the devices as a target, then press the `Download` button. Sadly, this option may not be available if you only use the Kindle app on your Apple or Android device. A file save dialog will appear, and you can save the file to disk as an offline backup.

Finally, repeat the previous steps for every other title in your library which you wish to have a backup copy of. My ~350 title library is now laughing at me as I go through the process.

I suspect the majority of my followers who would be interested have already backed this Kickstarter, but I'm putting this out there anyways.

If you've enjoyed my Memories of Dominique or Nightmare of Dominique fanfics,  sir-talen has teamed up with  TheBlueWazaga to create an illustrated print version of the original story. At this time, they are just under $1k shy of the goal for the Kickstarter. Among the available rewards are 4 YCH slots in a double page image spread. Filling those slots would go a long way towards bringing the project to fruition.

Given that some of my recent works have dipped a toe into other people's universes, I thought I might stretch my boundaries a bit and put myself out there for trades. I'm fairly certain the number of creators who would be interested in making a trade is approximately 0, but you never know unless you put it out into the universe.

A few ground rules:
1. Original characters only. Specifically, your original characters. My original characters reserve the right to put in an appearance in the final product. If you want me to include characters owned by others, I will seek their approval prior to agreeing to the trade.
2. References needed. However, I'm not looking for a formal reference sheet for the character(s) at play. Instead, I'm looking for existing content so I can understand who the characters are. Ideally, either 4k words, 4 images, or something in between.
3. Strive for something of equal value. I have found my muse to be somewhat ... inconsistent in how long her attention will stay focused on a project. More than likely, the final word count will be something on the order of 1-1.5k words. Using a rate of 5 cents/word, that would translate to an approximate cash value of $50-$75. If I take those cash values and convert them to time at a rate of $15/hr, you get a value of ~3-5 hours spent working on the story, which is probably fair. My inner critic thinks I'm overestimating the value of my works, but the price of everything has gone up over the past few years.
4. Don't jump the gun. As much as I'd like to think that I would have a fairly quick turnaround on my half of a trade, I don't know if that would actually happen. Let me at least get started on my half before you start on yours.
5. Acceptance of trade offers not guaranteed. Another of those things that goes without saying, but for whatever reason I may chose not to accept a given trade offer. Don't take it personally. I don't want to half-ass my side of the trade if my muse can't find something to latch onto.

With that mental dump out of the way, drop me a note if you have an idea for consideration. Depending on my mood, the starting point for my return offer will likely be a selected passage from one of my works (with references).

While I didn't take note at the time, I passed a couple milestones a couple months or so back. On FurAffinity, I crossed the 25 watcher mark. About the same time, I reached the 50 watcher mark on Deviant Art. Admittedly, I can't just add the two numbers together to get my total number of watchers (I'm nearly certain there's overlap), but those are both milestone numbers (of sorts) for a writer who generally tries not to care about things like view count.

I know I've been a bit quiet on the submission front. Over the next month or so, I intend to break that gap. While I know the rate won't be sustainable, hopefully it'll feed my muse and encourage her to work a bit more on some past projects.

At the moment, I've got one story that's been sitting on disk since the beginning of the year that I just need to post. There's a second that I threw together over a few days at the start of the month, and I've been working on a third that I hope to finish soon. In addition, I also purchased a slot for a YCH commission, so that may be something to keep an eye out for.

As far as past projects go, the two biggies are another installment for both the Pony Express and Trotting in Hoofprints storylines. I can't say they're in active development, but I am adding a little bit to them here and there. I've also got several others that I could dust off (assuming I remember where I was going with them).

To set the stage for this post, I have a car. I purchased it when the odometer had a reading of less than a couple hundred miles. It now has a reading close to a couple hundred thousand miles. When I first got plates for the car, my state had the normal (to me) requirement of a front and rear license plate. Fast forward a few years. The state legislature, in their infinite wisdom, decided that vehicles only needed a rear plate. The argument for making the change was that it would save money and bring our state in line with some of our neighbors.

No points if you can guess the political bent of said legislature. I would argue that there are benefits to having front plates on cars, particularly if the car is spotted in a compromising position. Set the clock forward to the end of last week. One of the features of the metro area I live in is a dedicated outdoor concert venue, located about a half hour from home. For a change of pace, my partner got tickets for us to see a show there.

The night of the concert, mother nature decided to give us a free fireworks show, which delayed the start of the show by close to two hours. When we finally got back to the car, it was close to midnight. However, when I approached it, I noticed that something was wrong. The front license plate was missing. A close look at where it had lived suggested that someone had unscrewed it.

Given the hour and the volume of traffic leaving after the show, I elected to go with the flow and make my way home. The next day, I had to drive the half hour out to the police station covering the jurisdiction of the venue so that I could file a report. This was later in the day, so as to avoid disrupting my day job. By the time I finished filing the report, the local license bureaus were closing for the day. This meant that I had to go in to my local branch the following day to get a replacement plate, as the old plate was recorded in the system as stolen.

Things are more or less back to normal now. The time required to deal with someone else's foolishness is slightly annoying. I'm also a little annoyed at having to change my plates after having them for over 10 years.

In the immortal words of Monte Python, 'I'm not dead yet!'. The past ~month has been a rather expensive undertaking. The perils of home ownership. In related news - being a responsible adult stinks. One out of five stars. However, it's better than being an irresponsible adult, so reluctantly recommended.

While I'd prefer to have been posing about my own literary works, my muse hasn't been particularly interested in lending her talents to any of the works in flight. As such, I thought I'd put out a few notes about what I've been reading recently.
* Princesses of the Pizza Parlor (Maikel Yarimizu) - LitRPG about a group of tweenage girls dipping their toes into the world of tabletop RPGs - as princesses.
* Dragon Kin (Audrey Faye) - High Fantasy about a group of dragons and their kin, chosen to save dragonkind.
* Goth Drow Unleashed (Martha Carr/Michael Anderle) - Urban Fantasy about a half-drow and her adventures understanding her father's legacy.
* Multiple series by Zoe Chant - Paranormal Romance
** Glacier Leopards - Snow leopard shifters, set around Glacier national park.
** Veteran Shifters - Sequel series to Glacier Leopards.
** Wildfire Shifters - Hotshot fire fighter shifters. Books 1 (Wildfire Griffin) and 4 (Wildfire Pegasus) include neurodivergent protagonists.
** Shifter Cub Camp - Sequel(ish?) series to Wildfire Shifters. I've only read the sample of Stormwolf Summer, but the general setting is similar to my Camp Leaning Trees stories, though focused on the adults rather than the campers.

For those reading my journals, you've probably noticed that I consistently rant about the fickleness of my muse. The most recent uploads are no exception to that refrain. Rather than finishing off something that I already started, she decided to continue playing in the Pony Express universe. The result of the creative endeavors is yet another storyline, entitled 'Trotting in Hoofprints', or Hoofprints for short.

Chapter 1 ('Answers and Questions') was posted a couple weeks ago on both FA and DA. I didn't make a journal post about it then as I had other things going on. Today's release ('Like Mare, Like Filly') is FA only, as the content runs too close to DA's limits. Although the questionable subject matters are only touched on, there were also a couple paragraphs that would have had led to the story being paywalled. While I do have a bit of a following on DA, I can't see there being enough users who like my works enough to fork over for a new installment. While I probably could have edited them out for DA, the combination of the factors lead me to decide that I would only do a FA release.

I have started on the third chapter of the storyline which is using the series title as its working title. As usual, don't expect a quick turnaround.

On a mostly unrelated topic, it's #locktober again for those who care about such things. I know this installment included chastity devices as a subplot, but the release timing in relation to #locktober was coincidental.

As it says on the can - I've got a reasonable collection of storylines and characters, and there may be a few of you out there who have the urge to ask them a question. Well, if you're one of those people, this is your chance. Just comment with your question and the character to whom the question is being addressed. If the character undergoes significant development over the span of their story arc (such as a certain kirin whom shall remain nameless), you may want to mention a point in their timeline as their responses may change as they develop.

Today's release is slightly different, as it was off of FA/DA. On the FA/DA side of things, I'm doing something a bit different and asking my watchers what sort of content releases they would prefer (in terms of word count). The options are as follows:
* More frequent short (1-2k word) stories
* Less frequent longer (10k+ word) stores
* Something in-between

Naturally, the actual word count and release frequency will depend on just what my muse decides it wants to do, but I'm curious what my handful of regulars prefer. FA doesn't have a poll feature, so chime in in a comment.

While I haven't exactly publicized it, I've been trying to run something approaching a once a week release schedule for the past few weeks. The downside to such a release cycle is that you have to have both the productivity to assemble something every week, and a bit of a backlog to fill in for those times when you have writers block or the muse wants to work on something bigger. While I have a collection of half-finished works, none of them are near ready to see the light of day. At the moment, I've got a story ready for next week (probably), but little idea what's coming after that. While I may have my eyes on a particular work or two, my muse tends to be rather fickle.

This update's a bit of a potpourri of topics.

For those following me on DA, I finally got around to cross-posing Pony Express and New Pony last Thursday. Part of the reason for doing so was so that I'd be ready when I post my next story. Entitled Stable Dealings, this one's fairly short (~2800 words), but it brings in characters from both the New Pony and Unicorn Hunter storylines. Both storylines start with Pony Express, leading to a somewhat chaotic plot graph. Sorry DA, I don't expect to post Unicorn Hunter and Kirin Hunter on your side.

For my watchers on the FA side, you have a Throwback Thursday of your own coming. More than likely, the story after Stable Dealings will be set in the Camp Leaning Trees universe. To lay the groundwork for posting it on FA, I'll want to have the rest of the stories uploaded there prior. I've actually got a couple candidates from this universe. One candidate is an alternate POV of a scene that I've already published, while the other is #mermay inspired. The later scene will probably end up being incorporated into a stub chapter that's been on the board.

One drawback to the different contests DA runs is that they generally seem to exclude the written word (not that I would jump to participate even if they were inclusive of it). Even so, I wanted to do at least something in the spirit of the tag.

One other work that's been chasing around the nogin is a PSA for Mental Health Awareness Month, intended for publishing on Oh Joy Sex Toy. Unfortunately, given my lack of practice with the visual arts, I would either have to contribute it in script form only, find an artist to collaborate with on it, or see if Second Life screen shots would be suitable. First step though would be getting an online down on disk, and I've got enough other balls in flight.

It's been a bit longer of a slog than I wanted, but I've finished my initial draft of 'At the sign of the Prancing Kitty'. Total word count is just over 15k words, written over the span of ~2 months. I suppose the term slog may be a bit of a misrepresentation. In terms of word count, it's roughly the same length as Pony Express and New Pony combined. However, it took me roughly 13 months to finish off those two stories.

At the moment, I'm thinking I'll let Prancing Kitty 'bake' for a week or so. I need/want to throw it at the Hemmingway app for a machine assisted proof-read, and I need to double check I don't reuse character references and transitional phrases too much.

In the meanwhile, I've been looking at my FurAffinity and DeviantArt galleries, and tried to figure out what other stories I should cross-post. On the FA side, I will probably bring across my 'Camp Leaning Trees' stories. I think I was initially hesitant to do so because the protagonist is a decidedly mundane human. However, she finds herself in a world inhabited by a wide variety of what she thought were mythological creatures, including a werewolf. As such, it probably fits on the site. The other hesitation in bringing these stories across was because the inspiring context was found on DA and not FA.

On the DA side, things are a bit more complex. DA's content submission guidelines are rather nuanced, and some of the stories (Endgame, Special Project) likely fall outside the boundaries of what DA considers acceptable. Other stories (Warehouse Explorer, Unicorn Hunter, Kirin Hunter) potentially need to be paywalled on DA. In order to paywall them, I'd need to get Core, and I don't quite see the value in doing so. I think I should be clear to cross-post Pony Express and New Pony, even if they might lose a bit of context without the hunter stories. I've also got another story in the works that was inspired by content on FA that isn't found on DA. Even if this story doesn't wander into paywall territory, I'm not certain if it makes sense to post it on DA, as I couldn't easily link to the source image.

Well, 'At the sign of the Prancing Kitty' has been in the works for 30 days. Current word count is 11573, including 44 words of plot points. I could see those plot points turning into at least another 2k words. Hitting 17.5k ('novella' length) would certainly be nice, but I'm not going to try to stretch it out to fit a word count target.

Why a 30 day word count? Because November has 30 days, and is NaNoWriMo. The stated goal of NaNoWriMo is to compose a 50k word novel, though ~10k seems to my typical productivity limit for a month. In terms of structure, the story seems to kinda align with a 'traditional' 5-act play. Acts 1, 3 and 5 are more or less finished, and I'm starting to fill in the blanks/plot points on 2 and 4. My muse also decided to hand me a checkov's gun (or two), even if they weren't by intent.

If you're watching my account, you probably have a good idea of what my interests are. I stumbled across a nice work today by a new(ish) artist that fell square within those interests. Therefore, I thought I'd give a shoutout to  GloriaGator. Go give her a +fav and/or +watch and see if we can help keep her muse inspired.

The month of January was a particularly productive one for me, with 'Walk before you trot' weighing in at 5101 words, and 'At the sign of the Prancing Kitty' having reached a total of 5289 words. This later number includes ~250 words of plot point bullets and content requiring a rewrite.

This productivity was aided by some time off from the day job at the start of the month, though said day job has gotten rather hectic as the month has come to a conclusion. While I tend to be fairly bad at estimating how long it will take to write any given story or how long it will be, I'm suspecting Prancing Kitty could end up on the order of 10k words. I'm hoping it'll be done by end of month, but the actual timing could be anyone's guess. Sometimes a plot bullet point turns into a paragraph. Other times, it can fill multiple pages.

Instead of Prancing Kitty, I had wanted to return to working on my Camp Leaning Trees storyline (inspired in part by the e-book Cookies and Campers), but my muse had other plans.

This isn't exactly a fridge logic moment (more like a shower logic moment), but I was thinking on some world building I did in the comments for New Pony. In short, I realized that the geosocial environments of Zootopia and The Hunger Games aren't that different. While Zootopia doesn’t seem to have the class stratification of Panem, it has speciesism in its place. Both worlds seem to be countries/continents where the production of the outer buroughs/districts helps support the ongoing operations of the namesake/capital city. I’ll ignore the monorail approach to the signature city as a coincidence, but note that Zootopia was originally a darker story than the one that appeared on screens, according to the Disney Fandom wiki (10 Jan 2022). I found this nugget of trivia while trying to get my ducks in a row with the comparison.

In terms of character mapping, I could see the following:
* Judy would be Katniss (though an argument could be made for making her Rue)
* Nick would be Peeta
* Lionheart would be President Snow
* Bellwether would be President Coin
* Bogo might be Haymich.

Or 'Happy New Year', take your pick. 2021 ended with a dose of sureality (I have connections to the part of Colorado that suffered the grass fires), so the only way 2022 can go is up, right?

After entirely too long, I've finally posted two stories worth of content, weighing in at just shy of 15k words, combined. These are Pony Express and New Pony. The later of these stories started life as part of the former before being relegated to the cutting room floor. However my muse wouldn't let it go, and turned it into a full story. This story was finished in October, but I wanted to wait to release it until the first part of the story was completed. I'd hoped to have them out a week ago, but I had to get over a bit of writer's block to bring Pony Express to a tidy conclusion. What I expected to be a paragraph or two ended up being close to 1500 words. Durn muses.

No, I'm not going anywhere, but the independent (fury) publisher Goal Publications has stated that they are having financial problems and are likely closing their print business after Anthrocon. As such, their catalog of works may be going out of print in the near future. For those of you with a bit of pocket money to spare, I would encourage you to browse their shop, and see if anything catches your eye.

I recently picked up the ebook version of a few of their works (The Daily Grind, Give Yourself a Hand, and Thrill of the Hunt). The first is SFW, while the later two are definitely not. I'm still reading the third book, but I thought I'd mention a few stories from the other two that caught my fancy.
From The Daily Grind:
* Ecto-Cafe - Even ghost hunters need their go juice.
* Sir Alymer Versus the Dragon - When you make a living hunting dragons, some things are worth more than gold. Things like coffee beans.
* Dragon Roasted Coffee Beans - When you've lived a dragon's life, sometimes you just want to settle down and make coffee.
From Give Yourself a Hand:
* The Christian Boy’s Guide to Sex with Demons - For a badger growing up in a very conservative family, it is sometime necessary to turn to unusual places to learn about the birds and the bees.
* With One Hand Tied Behind His Back - Features the main characters of sir-talen's The Red Vixen Adventures in a tale of what can happen when you can't get to sleep.
* An Unconventional Marriage Bed - A bit of backstory for a couple of the characters in rukis's Red Lantern series.

Well, it's been a few months since my last update. While I haven't done much with my writing, I did have a small Eureka moment a little while back that put a thing or two in prospective. Keep an eye out for a journal on that topic in the next couple weeks.

In terms of pastimes, I've been playing a few video games. One of the YouTubers that I follow was given early access to Evil Genius 2 (hence the journal title). While I can't run it on my system of choice, my primary workhorse is able to run the original, which I purchased from GOG several years back. Inspired by the (short) let's play, I dug out said original and have put a few hours into it. As the name implies, you take on the titular role of an evil genius and enact your nefarious plan to take over the world. One of the key milestones in the game is moving from your first island to your second island, and I recently reached that milestone in my play. I actually had to restart this playthrough at the second objective, as a bug lead me to stall out part-way through said objective.

In addition to Evil Genius, I also made a couple other game purchases recently. The first was Factorio, which I had parked on my GOG and Steam wishlists for a fair amount of time. I finally decided to splurge on it as there was a piece of sandbox design work that I wanted to do with it. I've also started a playthrough with an eye towards a couple accomplishments, though I haven't put as much time into that. The second game is entitled 'While true: learn()'. The ostentatious goal of the game is to learn how to communicate with your cat, but the developers also are trying to teach the player about the basics of AI and neural networks.

Finally, I've got a couple free to play games that are tablet focused that I've played for a couple years. Both are interesting enough to keep my attention, but not overly pushy with the monetization to the point where I'd likely be driven off.

I had intended to get this post out close to the beginning of the month, but that obviously didn't happen. Part of the reason was I accidentally lost a couple draft versions of the post when I forgot to save the updated draft in DA. While not a complete wash, my writing output for the month of February likely will be fairly minimal. I didn't do one of these posts for December, but I made some progress with my writing in January, so I thought I'd drop a quick count.

Pony Express: ~6547 words
New Pony: 3789 words
Total: ~10336 words

As is typical when working on content that was started before the start of the interval, I'm having to approximate a word count. In the case of Pony Express, the word count was 1170 words, as of December 31, but only about half was left unchanged. The rest was remixed over the duration of the month. Notably absent from the list of projects worked on was an older story that I've been wanting to finish. However, my muse has had other ideas.

The initial working title of Pony Express was Unicorns Wanted, but I changed the title as the story wouldn't get to the point where the name was appropriate until much later. While I don't have a target word count per say, the current length of Pony Express is such that it feels like a good size to release. I just need to finish the current scene to get to a good stopping point. Once there, I'll figure out how to get from the story from where it is to the eventual destination.

I probably will use the title Unicorns Wanted for a later story. The goal of the story/series was to explore how Max became the sociopath we meet in Unicorn Hunter, but my muse decided to be wordy. The first scene of New Pony started out as part of Unicorns Wanted, but immediately landed on the cutting room floor. Rather than leaving it there, I posted it in a journal a few weeks back. However, my muse wouldn't let it stay there. I still have 2-3 short scenes left to write, but it too is approaching a stopping point. Even if I finish it first, it won't be released until after Pony Express, as the progenitor helps set the stage for New Pony.

I feel like a broken record saying this, but muses are fickle things. The story I want to work on is an older story that fleshes out Darci's personality/backstory. However, the story that my muse has found more fascinating is a prequel to Unicorn Hunter, focusing on a certain kirin.

The following is a chunk of that prequel that likely is on the cutting room floor. The reason it likely won't make the final story is because the story closely follow Max, and he isn't present for the scene.

Janet strode into the stablemistress’ office, trying to mask her nervousness. The pit bull was behind her desk, working on some paperwork. She looked up at the sound of the door closing. The stablemistress was the first to speak. "That's right, you wanted to speak with me. What's on your mind?"

The margay came to attention in front of the desk, hesitated for a moment, then hurriedly let out her question. "Will you be measuring me for a set of tack?"

The pit bull was taken aback by the question. "Should I? I can't think of a reason to do so."

Her student shrugged before relaxing slightly. "As cover would have said, I know too much."

"Cover?"

"The kirin we worked with this morning. He never bothered to give a name."

"Oh! Him." She smiled. "Unlike Speakeasy, you know how to keep your mouth closed. Care to guess how many selfies she took with Princess?"

"Five?"

"Try fifty. And the only reason she didn't post them was because her phone died."

The margay winced. "And she probably would have used real names."

"It wouldn't surprise me. What brought up your concerns?"

"An indefinite pronoun during the morning briefing. For a moment, I saw myself riding back in the trailer with Speakeasy. I'm kinda exposed, depending on where the investigation goes, so it would have tied up a loose end."

The pit bull quickly stood up and swept around the desk to wrap her student in a hug. "We wouldn’t take you out of circulation like that if things got too hot to handle. If anything, it’d probably draw more heat. You’re a darn good jockey, and you’d make a horrible pony.”

Her student cracked a smile before responding. “Thanks. Two requests?” Receiving a nod, she continued. “If you need me to tack up, just put it in my locker. Save everyone the headaches. And can I have dibs on the name jailbait?”

The stablemistress rumbled her amusement and gave a squeeze. “The way you’re talking, you make it sound inevitable. Tell you what. If you really want me to take your measurements, let me know in a week or two. Once the tack is ready, we can have the occasional class where you swap your crop for the tack. Deal?”

“Deal.”

“Good. Now, go spend some time with Princess. She may be a pony, but she’s still your sister. Speakeasy on the other hoof will probably need some more time to cool her heels.”

Well, it's not quite the end of November (and #nanowrimo), but I think I've put a wrap on the current batch of writing projects. Kirin Hunter is live, and I've finished the first draft of 1001 date. As the later is content for Occupational Hazards, don't expect to see it any time soon. The one wrinkle in trying to put a word count on my productivity is that one of the works that was finished in November (Unicorn Hunter) was started in late October. As such, I can't exactly take credit for what had been written on the story as of November 1st as new content. Even so, have some numbers:

Unicorn Hunter (final): 6186
Unicorn Hunter (Nov 1): -~3750
Unicorn Hunter (Nov 1 rewrites): +~200
Kirin Hunter: 15559
1001 date: 3453
1001 date (branch overlap): -~50
Total: ~21,598 (or ~43% of the nanowrimo goal)

In terms of raw word count, this is ~50% more than what I had created during the prior (overlaping) 30 day window. As far as new content is concerned, the bulk of that content (~8,921) was the completion of Unicorn Hunter, and the remainder (~1572) was for 1001 date. This gives a total of ~10493 words of new content in the second ~half of the month, as compared to the ~3750 words of content crafted during the second ~half of October.

The one piece of bad(ish) news related to these numbers is that I don't have any new writing projects on deck at the moment (though plenty of abandoned or semi-abandoned works), so I don't expect my numbers in December (If I even post them) to come close to these levels.

I recently received a one sentence note from a user, asking me to write a story featuring characters from a particular animated children's series. To me, this is quite inconsiderate on several levels. First, a user looking at my profile would see that I have (intentionally) left my user profile sparse. While I have been a bit more active recently with my journaling, I don't believe I have given any indications that I am accepting requests. Looking at my recent journals, I realize that one of the ongoing themes is an (unintentional) plugging of the Occupational Hazards game. However, my involvement with this game was the result of my unsolicited offer of content, rather than :usersamanthasnow: reaching out to me.

Second, the number of interactions I have had with this user have been minimal. No back and forth exchanges in the comments on one work or another and no attempt to get to get to know me. I will admit that the number of users I interact with on a regular basis is fairly small, not even a token effort was made to open that dialog. In real world terms, this was analogous to walking up to a random stranger at a writers convention and asking 'Would you write X for me'. While you might have seen them at a panel, they might not have taken note of you beyond your presence in the room.

Finally, there's the question of subject material. All of the writing I've posted here has been set either in a universe of my own devising, or within the context of Occupational Hazards. I've also posted some work on Deviant Art that is set in a second OC universe. While the work that is (currently) DA exclusive would be considered safe for work, the vast majority of what I have written is not. By requesting work from someone whose corpse of work is primarily adult oriented, you are implicitly asking for work that would have a similar rating. In this case, the problem is that the source material is an animated children's series. Putting these two things together, it implies that you are asking for adult oriented content to be created, featuring characters that normally appear on Saturday morning cartoons.

While I won't begrudge someone for indulging in this particular niche fetish (I have my own collection of niche fetishes after all), asking someone who has demonstrated no such interest is crossing a line. One key tenant of most fetish communities is the concept of consent. There is a distinct difference between 'I am walking through this door to see naked boobies' and 'naked boobies are running past my house'. With the former, you are implicitly consenting to the viewing of said naked boobies. With the later, they are thrust in your face, whether or not you consent to see them at that particular time. In this situation, a content creator's gallery is like a club. While both a nightclub and a strip club would be considered clubs, the expectations of what is contained within may be vastly different. If someone entered a strip club and screamed 'I want to see some naked boobies', it might be considered rude but it is fairly obvious that naked boobies lie within. If that same person entered a nightclub and shouted the same thing, they would probably be thrown out for violating the expected decorum.

On that note, I do recognize that my most recent posting is definitely darker than some of the other stories I've posted. As such, I explicitly called this fact out at the start of the story and tried to put any relevant story tags on the story. When I search for new content on FA, I have a handful of keywords that I use in my search, but I also have a longer list of keywords that I filter out of the results. While this might mean that I miss some content I might otherwise like, it also means that I don't have certain classes of content pushed in my face.

While I'm not going to disable comments initially, I reserve the right to do so. If you feel the urge to comment, please don't identify specific users in your commentary. That would potentially fall afoul of clause 2.4 in the code of conduct.

Hopefully this journal will fall off my front page in a few days. I've been making a serious push on Kirin Hunter, and I'm just trying to bring it to a close. Even if my muse insists on adding more narration before I go into the epilogue.

As commented a couple journals back, I've been doing another impromptu 30 days of writing sprint, this time ending during #nanowrimo. That 30 day window ended yesterday, so let's do some numbers:
Unicorn Hunter: 6186
1001 date: 1881
Kirin Hunter: 6638
Total: 14705

Naturally, a bit of explanation is needed for the yet to be released items. 1001 date is my working file name for a yet to be implemented Occupational Hazards date scene. I'd guess that I'm about 3/4 of the way through the scene. Because the subject of the date has yet to be introduced, I had to fork a couple lines of the story depending on the subject's gender, so that increased the word count slightly. Kirin Hunter is the sequel to Unicorn Hunter. I'm less certain as to how far through the story I am as I don't have a 'hard' list of plot points I want to fill in, but I'd guess it's somewhere between 1/2-2/3 of the way done. I'm not certain if I gave Max (from Unicorn Hunter) an idiot ball or not, but he is certainly living up to his sociopath roots. I'm also discovering that the protagonist (Alice) has a serious case of snark.

Taking things a step back, it is interesting to compare my output to last year. Unicorn Hunter (by itself) is nearly as long as the 3 released parts of Camp Leaning Trees combined. The other comparison of note is that I again didn't finish all of the works started. I suppose this tracks with last year, as my initial intent both years was to complete the first story written. And in both cases, my muse had enough of a head of steam that it was able to launch down the path to a sequel, even if it wasn't finished in the target window. I guess the takeaway is that I just need to think bigger when trying to come up with something for a #nanowrimo timespan.

... that I'd be puzzling out the structure of a bipedal hermaphrodite equine's genitalia. Just so I could lock it up in a cock/labia cage. Thanks for nothing, #locktober. On the plus side, I'm ~3k words into a first person (erotica noir) sequel to Unicorn Hunter. Definitely not my usual style, but it felt right. Got to make the muse happy after all.

I'm also shy of 2k words into that date scene for Occupational Hazards mentioned in my previous journal. That's kinda backburnered as it probably won't see the light of day for at least a year, with a couple years being a more likely timeline. My immediate writing goal is to finish the Unicorn Hunter sequel ('Kirin Hunter'), hopefully by the 16th for another calendar shifted 30 days of writing. I'm in no danger of finishing a 50k word novel in the timespan, but I've already exceeded last year's writing output in the same (shifted) timespan.

Apparently my muse seems to operate on a yearly release cycle. Around this time last year, I was putting the final touches on part 2 of Camp Leaning Trees. This year, the writing project is a story entitled 'Unicorn Hunter'. While these story releases aren't the only writing projects I've worked on, the content for Occupational Hazards has yet to be integrated into the game. While I haven't lost track of part 3 of Camp Leaning Trees, my muse hasn't been able to focus on it for a bit.

As is typical for my releases, the timing isn't quite where I might have liked it. It was started a week early for #nanowrimo, but was finished a week late for #locktober. While I've never made a concerted effort to see what I can produce during Nanowrimo, my muse has had a burst of creativity the past couple years around that time of year. As such, I do look at what my word count was. In this case, the total word count was 6186 words, or just over the total length of parts 1 and 2 of Camp Leaning Trees. While this is only ~10% of the target word count, I still have another ~2 weeks if I'm trying to see how much I can write in 30 days.

Unicorn Hunter is a decidedly different beast than Camp Leaning Trees. Where Camp Leaning trees falls in the PG-13 range (probably), Unicorn Hunter is very much an X rated story. My muse decided I had too much estrogen in my corpse of work, so the main characters in Unicorn Hunter are a decidedly horny M/m pair. Locktober being Locktober, chastity devices play an important part in the story. One minor spoiler is that the story has what would be considered a bad end, so make your decision to read accordingly.

On a more positive side, there is a short story within the story that my muse has the urge to convert into a planet 3 date in Occupational Hazards. Given that the datable character(s) on planet 3 have yet to be introduced, it will be some time before the expanded story shows up in game. My muse also believes in just deserts, so there is a possibility that the antagonist might get exactly that in a followup story that fits into my primary continuum.