I was going over some of my old backups, and I ran across my old folder of story ideas for the Goddess Island setting I'd created way back then. In the folder, among the scraps, were three incomplete stories. One's incomplete because it started covering the events from a second, incomplete story (which, since I was still writing that one I'd added things to it after that the initial doesn't have). And the third was the beginning of a setup that I didn't follow through on. The stories are pretty on par with the Goddess Island, dealing with vore, destruction, death, etc. I'm going to go ahead and put them up in the scraps, like I did the incomplete Hybrid University stories. Remember, these were written back at the same time as the other stories, just never finished.

"Code of Conduct 2.6 - Do not engage in malicious content.
Do not make derogatory use of caricatures, slurs, nor disparaging remarks about others' race, ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, sexual orientation or similar, or make maliciously misleading statements about cultures, religions, etc. This does not apply to fictional works when used as part of a narrative."

"Do not [...] make maliciously misleading statements about cultures, religions, etc."

If this section were to be applied in a fair and honest manner, much of the criticism against the United States of America would not be allowed on this site either. Disparaging remarks about it and its government, particularly those that are demonstrably untrue, would be in violation. This includes several bits of factually inaccurate rhetoric from far-left s-called "progressive" view points.

I have no doubt that a blind eye will be turned to any such statements despite the violations.

Ok, so I've been writing again. A different setting this time, Goddess Island. This one's a lot more explicit (even if most of the writing isn't). I love the concept and the characters, and I'm trying to avoid a flaw that happened in Hybrid University, though Goddess Island does share the big one.

The setting is in a bottle. The characters are largely trapped in one place. So there's not a lot to write about. It's usually just dealing with what these characters do with their daily lives. This isn't a horrible thing, there are several stories (soap operas etc.) that are designed in this way. But it is limited. And with Hybrid University, the ideas ran out. Sure, I had plans to deal with a younger group of hybrids, mostly the members of the band Instinct, and how they'd eventually make it out of the school and do performances in the real world. But it wasn't enough. It couldn't hold MY interest even long enough to write about it. (And, without my muse present, the writing wasn't that great, more on that later.) I had envisioned other points happening in Hybrid University as well, bits and pieces, but there wasn't enough for an ongoing arc, and there was literally nothing that could be used to fill the gaps between them. And I should have seen this coming, becuase this was the main problem with the original book. I had a few scenes to hit, and really nothing to fill the rest out with. Mind you, I think the story is there there, the struggle the early hybrids had, with how people dealt with them, with Glitter actually making it out, and then getting forced back in, and with the severity of Raj's problems changing how a lot of things were done. But I'm still lacking too many critical details, and I just don't know enough about certain topics (not the least of which being basic education principals that are somewhat necessary when dealing with a school) to properly hammer them out. So it stagnated on a back burner. I will, however, release a couple unfinished blurbs that I had into scraps. One of them is VERY short, and the other is something I consider to be some of my better work, at the beginning, that just falls into having nothing to do with the character anymore.

And this brings me to my new endeavor: Goddess Island. We have a lot of the same problem. The residents are on the island. interacting with largely themselves and that's it. But this time there is an out. The residents CAN get off the island, and interact with the world as a whole. Those interactions are just problematic. Not gonna lie, it's mostly fetish stuff, where the mainland is a place where they can go do what they like to do with minimal repercussions to them personally. The world suffers, they don't. But that concept appeals to me, so I plan on exploring it. Including going back into more detail, like I did with "Welcome to My World." Plus, you know, the setting has an all-powerful goddess in it. A goddess that serves MUCH better as a background plot device, an origin story, than a character herself. Which is why she, as of yet, has only appeared in - essencially - flashback. She will make appearances of her own though, assuming I keep writing. And that is, in part, up to you guys. I, like any creative type, crave feedback. The more I have, the more invested I am in continuing. Does that sound desperate, needy? Maybe. But the truth is the truth. Right now, I'm writing to please myself, but to continue, I hope to be pleasing others. Right now I am writing Goddess Island as an experiment, and as practice.

You see, I have finally made a story. A real plot, even with the connecting parts, from beginning to end, for at LEAST one book, with plans for a minimum of three others. These are books that, if I can manage to write them, I plan on trying to get actually published for sale. (Don't get me wrong, these are huge ifs, and may be years down the line, especially at the rate I am going.) But I need to actually make sure I'm good at writing before i do that. That's where these current stories come into play. I am probing myself for weaknesses, and I am finding them. I find that I am very weak with dialog, especially with multiple characters together. The characters begin sounding the same, blending together. This is something I need to really hammer down before I get going, how the various characters will act different from each other. I also notice that my writing style itself suffers during these bits. Where I can paint wonderful pictures elsewhere, when people are talking to each other, I seem to reduce to "x does y" style sentences. This isn't altogether too bad of a thing, I've been reading a bit for research and see several other highly successful authors doing the same thing to a degree. It is, after all, a limitation of the English language. But I still feel that I should be able to do better. So, for now, I practice when my muse isn't around.

Which brings me to the second part of the title. Muses. Or specifically, my muse. Which I apparently have to share with several other people. There are only so many muses to go around, you see, and there are a lot of people wanting to create things in this world. And my muse likes to pop up, drop the beginning of an idea, and then take off. She stuck around for nearly the entirety of "Welcome to My World", which is how I managed to belt that out in about six hours when the other stories have taken me about six days and six weeks respectively. It is my going theory that muses are fame vampires, of sorts. That they feed on attention. The more successful something is, the more likely the muse will come visit. And I toil in obscurity. Such is my lot in life, as you have to actually create something good to be successful, but muses won't stick around to see something completed if you haven't been successful. It's a bit of a catch 22, until you realize that it's your job to pick up that slack and run with it. After all, muses are inspiration, they are not there to do the work for you. Hence the need to practice. And hence, these stories. And I'm pretty sure she was just here for this journal. Sometimes it's hard to tell when she visits.

At any rate, the bottom line is that I am going to try to continue with these stories, to try to work out my weaknesses in them. I hope that they are good enough that some of you are enjoying them, even if you aren't commenting on them. And yes, they are LONG, I know that, that's just how I'm writing at the moment. More of writing "chapters" than specific scenes. After all, book practice. I just wanted to let anyone who was interested know what's going on with this account. Enjoy.

My muse hates me.

It's really not more complicated than that. We've always had a combative relationship. She only shows up when I'm trying to sleep, or will get really excited to start a project, then gets bored and wonders off. I've tried to appease her, ignore her, create without her, but nothing really works. But I can understand her plight. There are only so many muses to go around, and she's a busy, busy girl. I just wish she had some better time management and could spend more with me once in a while.

I've got several half-stories written. Mostly about Hybrid University (since that's what I've been trying to make popular), some about other settings I've not released. But the narrative process eludes me. The stories are boring, when they're not outright cliche. The main problem is I've written myself into a corner with Hybrid University. The characters are in a bottle. They exist inside the university and only inside the university becuase outside of the walls is a hostile world that wants little if anything to do with them. There is potential there. Conflict is bound to happen when some of the characters get out. The problem I've been having is setting up the characters in a way that doesn't make me regret trying to write in the first place. I can't just jump to the "good stuff" without the introductions, but I cannot make the introductions work. I think I have a great group of characters to write about, but I'm also having problems trying to get all of their personalities right all the time. I tend to only really be able to get into one or two of their heads at once, so when they're all together trying to talk, some fade away, become generic, or the dialog just falls flat. It's often said that the artists and authors are their own worst critics. While it may be true, I simply can't release something I'm not proud of.

It is very frustrating. My creative specialty is characters and settings, but whenever I try to tell their story, it fails. I've got dozens of settings, and hundreds of characters, but nothing to do with them. My personal life has been unpleasant the past few years, which when combined with the aforementioned frustration, has left me fairly depressed and half the time I don't want to do anything at all. So my progress has ground to a complete halt. Sadly, until I do something I proud of again, I don't see that changing any time soon. I keep pecking at the stories, but nothing comes of it.

So why am I telling all this here, where likely no one's going to see it? *Shrug* Where else am I going to get all of this off my chest? And to let anyone who actually does care about Hybrid University, who did like what's there so far, know that I'm not entirely dead, and neither is it. But unless something changes for me, expect a lot more of the same in the near future. I'm sorry, but sometimes someone's best effort just isn't good enough.

At last, the dry spell has ended. The great flood begins. Brace yourself while everybody who has been spending time working on their art or stories while FA was down, unable to be distracted by looking at the works of others, being to filter in and post the month long workloads.

During the down time, I myself managed to complete the critical Setting & Rules document for the Hybrid University setting. I'm just hoping it doesn't get lost in the shuffle. Over 10,000 words not of story, but of dry description, detailing the environment, the characters, the very world I've created. It's all here for others to use, and will be updated as more information becomes available. I will still work on stories myself for the setting. In fact, the next piece I plan on working on involves some of the new characters in the document, namely the members of Instinct.

I hope people enjoy this setting, and take the opportunity to create for it as well. As I said, with my lack of artistic talent, this is about all I can give back to the community. I realize that reading takes a more considerable time investment on the viewer, and that a new setting from a new author has little to recommend it, but I am hoping that some day, seeing the Hybrid University tag will mean something. I appreciate everyone who will help make that dream come true, those that create stories or artwork themselves, or even the fans themselves who spread the word. Thank you.

Just a quick up-front warning: This journal entry is going to ramble a bit. It is, as the title says, just my thinking out loud. A stream of thoughts and ideas that I'm not really trying to format, I'm just trying to get written down.

I am not an artist. I simply cannot draw. I can't even form a picture in my head in order to get an idea WHAT to draw, my brain's simply not wired up correctly for it.

So why create an account here? The obvious reason, so that I could get access to all of the various pictures on this web site, some of various fetishes I like.

But now that I HAVE this account.. what am I going to do with it, other than mark a bunch of favorites, or simply leave it blank while I go look at other's pictures? I already don't want to do that becuase  dorallizard already went and put me on the watch list (reciprocity, it would seem). So I'd feel a bit guilty doing nothing with this account.

So that leaves me with a conundrum. I'd like to contribute, but I'm not entirely sure what I CAN contribute. Not what would be acceptable via the ToS, but rather what I can do to add to the community (to which, I will confess, I am quite new to personally.. even if I've been watching small bits and pieces of it for a while now).

Artwork is out of the question. As is music. That leaves me with little to go on but text. That's not a bad thing, I do dabble in writing - when my muse actually hangs around a bit. My writing is decent, but I'd not call it great by any means. I'm also usually better at creating the characters and setting than a story itself. As such, I do have a lot of chars, and a few settings, that I could write about. (I don't have any one solid persona, a few favorites depending on my mood though.) I could try writing a few samples, various characters doing whatever it is they do, to start out. Get some experience, see what works for me and what doesn't. Some may be fetish (vore, macro), some may be adult, but I'm not really that good at, or honestly, that comfortable writing about, such subject matter. I already have one character introduction style story ready - could use some work, so I'll run over it one last time and upload it after this journal.

I did have an idea though, that I would like to try. The problem is, it's a viewer participation idea. And as of right now, there's likely to be only one or two other people who are going to read this journal any time soon. That, combined with the fact that it'll be written instead of drawn, means the likelihood of feedback right now is quite small.

Art's a lot easier to get feedback for, becuase you can glance at an image and immediately know whether or not you like it. For text, you have to dedicate to reading before you even know if it's something you'll like. Which means finding something or someone new takes longer, and may end up as a wasted effort, so there's less inclination to actually do so. It's nobody's fault, it's just an inherent problem with the format. I'm not trying to pressure anyone into reading my works, or giving feedback that you wouldn't otherwise do either, I am just currently stating observations.

So there lies the conundrum. I have an idea, that is based on other people participating. I am new to the site, and the community as a whole, so I don't really know anyone, nor does anyone know me. So trying to get feedback, be that people trying the idea out, people talking about my writing style, or even people just commenting on the idea, is already going to be a problem. Couple that with the fact that this is all done in writing and not artwork, and that makes it all the more unlikely that I could even get this idea off the ground. But I won't get any response if I don't put the idea out there at all. So here goes nothing...

*THE IDEA*

I have some settings that I think would go over well here, even if I don't have any completed stories for them. What I can do, is write about the setting - set it up a bit, maybe write about a few chars of my own in it, and then use that as a basis for others to try putting a char in the setting. Some settings are best for new chars, some can use existing, it can all be considered out of context or alt. reality if you wish to place pre-existing chars of yours in that may not jive with their current or past stories. My settings will all be clearly marked, and any stories I upload about them will also be marked as that setting (including a link to the setting text most likely). Some of you may have ideas for stories with the settings, some may just want to draw a scene or two. If you do, let me know about it and give me a link to the uploads so I can see for myself what's happening with my settings. These settings are going to be my creation, but some coincidences and similarities may exist (some are a bit generic after all).

Now, I have no idea how well this will work. I'm pretty certain that if it DOES work at all, it's going to take a while to get rolling. Today is New Year's Eve '07 (Happy New Year everyone), so it's pretty much my plan to begin early '08. If you like the idea, let me know, and let others know about it. If you want to participate, I'd love to hear it. If you DON'T like the idea, see any problems with it etc.. let me know that too. Any feedback can help.

Here's hoping that I can actually add something meaningful.