I'm nearing completion of a story I intend to submit for publication, and need a couple of beta readers. It's about 7,500 words and has M/F sex in it, but little or no kink. Is anyone here interested?

Edit: I think I have enough now.

Currently I have 141 followers here on FA. A couple of days ago, I got three new followers in the span of a half hour. I have no idea why. Is it something I wrote?

Lately I've seen a lot of pictures coming across my watchlist that show a woman wearing a shirt pulled up above her breasts. Often the breasts are large enough and the shirt small enough to make you wonder if the shirt could even fit over the breasts if pulled down. Is this a thing?

Here are two examples from the last couple of days. I've seen probably a couple dozen or more in the last month.
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/17407979/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/17413026/

Imagine a fandom where artists look for writers to tell the stories behind their pictures, instead of the other way around. How different would that be?

On or about July 17th, I received a notification that I was being watched by  GuloMaritimus. I didn't respond right away, as I sometimes fall behind, get preoccupied, and so forth, but I eventually got around to it, posting a "thanks for the watch" shout on July 23rd.

I later found out that Gulo, also known as Chakat Blackrose, passed away July 19th. He never saw my shout, and according to his now memorialized userpage, I am the last person he watched.

It's an odd, uncomfortable feeling being in that spot. Not that anything was intended by it, nor could it be helped. No doubt Gulo himself expected to be around interacting with others and adding to his watchlist for some time to come. It was a random thing, and as it says somewhere in the Bible, no one knows the day or the hour.

Maybe I'm bored so go ahead, tell me what you assume about me.

Yes, I will be there, but I won't be readily identifiable if you don't already know who I am.

I'll say this much: I will be at some of the writing panels. If you want to know more, PM me.

I unwatched more than a dozen artists this morning. In case any of you have a means of being notified when you get unwatched by someone, here is my explanation: The person behind this account has two FA accounts and I was watching a few of you in both of them. In order to save a little time going through submissions, journals, etc., this morning I went through the watches on both accounts, found all the double watches and removed one of them. The bottom line, if you're one of them, is that I'm still watching you with my other account.

1. Why did you join FurAffinity?
I don't really remember. Probably because it was an up-and-coming furry website at the time. And to "stake out" my preferred ID before someone else did (after someone else beat me to the name on LJ).

2. What does your username have to do with you?
I'm a clouded leopard. Clouds=storm; feline=kitty.

3. What is your current avatar of?
A butt avatar by  tabbiewolf

4. How many watchers do you have, and how many do you watch?
Watched by 119; watching 297.

5. Do you have more than one account?
I have one other. This one is primarily for my more adult works and interests; the other is my general/SFW account. No, I'm not going to say who it is. A few of my followers know. If you ask nicely I might tell you (privately).

6. Name 3 of your favorite artists on FA.
Tough question! There are so many good ones. So I'll bypass a few a the most oft-mentioned favorites and name a few that might not gain as much notice -  foxxian,  silentravyn, and  ruaidri.

And since there isn't a question about favorite authors, I'll name some of those too:  nathancowan,  cirrel,  oreos.

7. What artist do you admire because of their personality?
I've only worked with a handful, but two of those I enjoyed working with were  jazzfoxrules and  sidian.

8. Do you comment, fave, or both?
I fave anything I want to keep, and comment when inspiration strikes me.

9. What do you typically post on FA?
Stories, once in a while.

10.What's your favorite submission in your gallery?
A Private Heaven, the first story I wrote under this identity and the one I'm still proudest of.

11. What are the things you wish you could draw better?
I'm a writer, not an artist, so I'll answer accordingly. I wish I could write friendly banter between characters better. I wish I could do difficult, unreasonable characters better. And maybe action scenes (no, not that kind of action).

12. How many hours a day do you spend on FA?
It varies. At a guess, 1-2 hours across both accounts.

13. Are you a fast, slow, or medium typer?
Medium-fast, I guess. I never really measured it.

14. What is the most annoying thing people ask you?
I can't think of anything annoying I've been asked

15. What is the most annoying/offending comment you've received?
Don't recall any of those either. I don't get enough comments for the law of averages to have caught up with me, and I wish I did.

16. What/who inspires you?
I don't really know.

17. Everyone has considered leaving FA once or twice. Have you? Why?
Well, no. FA is like Microsoft Windows. It has a lot of problems and a lot of flaws, but everyone under the sun uses it so if you don't use it too you miss out on keeping up with too many of your friends and favorite artists and writers. I keep hoping someday someone will create the next big furry gallery/networking site that's better than FA and everyone will start using it, but it hasn't happened yet.

Artist  tabbiewolf is offering free 100*100 butt icons. Go check her out!

Those of you who are fans of my story A Private Heaven might be interested in a piece I recently commissioned from  jazzfoxrules which may be found at http://www.furaffinity.net/view/10765413/. While there are some differences in the details from how I pictured it, overall I'm very pleased with how this came out.

This isn't the first picture I've commissioned from her. She's done more than a dozen pictures before of characters from  nathancowan's Fox Force stories (main characters originally by  dynotaku) and has done a few pony pics, so I couldn't resist the temptation to have her draw Fox Force ponified: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/10349074/.

One of my projects over the weekend was to write a story for  ruaidri's writing contest. I achieved my goal, which was to get a first draft completed. For a while there while I was laying it out I wasn't sure if it would stay under the 5,000 word limit without some trimming, but the completed first draft came out near 4,000, so now I have some room to expand and add more description as I go through the process of editing.

It will be posted here and on SF. It'll probably be a week or two, so keep watching this space.

Edit: The story has now been posted: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/10747054/

At one of the furry conventions I attended last year, I was at a writing panel, where in a discussion about settings and world building, one of the panelists made a rather derisive comment about 'aliens who just happen to look like earth foxes'. This comment left me rather nonplussed, since I just happen to be working on an epic-length story that features an alien race who look like foxes.

Afterwards I thought about it some more. If C.J. Cherryh and Lisanne Norman can create a race of space aliens who resemble big cats, if K.D. Wentworth can create an alien race that resembles wolves, if Gordon R. Dickson can create an alien race that resembles bears, then why the hell not foxes? Besides, as the hosts of the Unsheathed podcast have said in answer to the question about what justification you need to make your characters furry, if making your characters furry helps you feel more motivated to write stories about them that you otherwise might not write, then what more justification do you need?

The story in question is one I've referred to as an epic story from time to time to at least some of you who may be reading this. A year ago I said it would be about now at the earliest before I'd have anything ready to post, and now that now has arrived, I'm going to say another half a year minimum, more likely a full year. Last fall I didn't get much done on it while I spent a couple of months cranking out a couple of new stories in the Private Heaven setting, in which I have several ideas for further stories when I'm ready to devote the time to writing them. I've been making good progress on the epic story in recent months. I think I've added more than 20k words to it just since Christmas. Given that I'd like to write some stories that get sold and published and not just posted online, I'm currently taking a detour with this setting to write a short story that I plan to submit for an upcoming anthology. I've discovered that when I keep my mind in the story universe it's easier to jump back and forth to the main story.

Keeping my head down and the momentum up...

For girls who love books, and guys who love girls who love books, here's a video for you...

I can hardly believe it's been almost ten years since the first time I uploaded A Private Heaven. Where does the time go? I've gotten loads of positive feedback for that story, and it's all been very much appreciated. I can't thank everyone enough who has written comments. So to all the readers who have enjoyed that story, I have some good news.

To commemorate the tenth anniversary, I'm doing something I've been saying for years I was going to do but never got around to until now: I'm writing two new short stories featuring Chama, Kirin and Travis! At this writing they are works in progress and are coming along nicely. Barring any unforeseen difficulties, they will be posted on the anniversary date, which is November 5th. To anyone who hasn't read the original work, the new stories will include spoilers; that's still a few weeks off, so there's still time.

As for that other epic novel I've been working on, it continues to progress well. It's going to be quite large and is still months away at the earliest before any of it will be ready to post.

In response to several comments I've received to my most recent story and elsewhere, you might say there is good news and bad news.

The good news is that I've gotten a lot more into the swing of writing lately, and most of my time is being spent on a novel length story, possibly epic-novel at the rate things are developing. The story will feature a good deal of sex and erotic scenes, but it will also be heavy on the plot end of things.

The bad news is that I don't intend to release any of it until I have at least a first draft of the whole thing, which will take several months at least, possibly a year or more.

In other good/bad news, I'll probably break away from it from time to time to work on other stories. The one I posted a few days ago was just such a story. The epic story in development is not set in my Private Heaven setting, but some of the side stories may be. And if Rechan decides to produce a Will of the Alpha Vol. 2, I'd like to be in it.

As the time to begin posting parts of the epic story approaches, I will probably be asking for beta readers, but that's still months away.

 chromatophore is trying an interesting concept, one worth following regardless of what you think of her art, which I happen to think is pretty good (I'm guessing the artist is a she). It's called Ask Dewey Teagarden, in which she has given a brief intro and invites readers to submit questions, with the intent to reveal more about herself, her job, her co-workers, and some of the very personal activities that come with it. It's a fictional world being done in-character but one which holds the promise of a lot of very interesting and highly erotic things waiting to be revealed.

I sent in the first note, and while I can think of plenty more to keep things going, it would be best to assume that getting more readers, more watchers, more different followers writing in with questions, is what is needed to keep the idea going.

Read this journal first, followed by her response to my submission. Then write to her. Don't forget to watch so you'll see her reply.

A relatively new artist on FA who is IMOH well worth a watch:  kabier

My backlog of journals added up to way too many to catch up on. Over 7000!. So after reviewing any that looked interesting on the first (i.e. most recent) page of them, I hit the nuke button.

User  scarlitt is offering free art. Though the list is getting long at this writing, she still says Keep 'Em Coming, so don't be shy!

I registered too. I don't know how much I'll use the account but at least I have the name staked out. Plus, now I can access the good stuff.

http://inkbunny.net/StormKitty

I was very saddened to hear of the death of  darkwolfie this morning, due to complications from the H1N1 virus. I didn't know him beyond some online interaction, including on Tapestries. He did a couple of drawings of me from an auction at the Harem Auctions Theatre, one of which was cropped to produce the avatar I currently use on FA and will probably continue using for the time being. It is hard to get used to the idea that we have seen the last of him at the auction house or anyplace else he would visit on Tapestries. You will be missed, Wolfie. My thoughts go out to your wife, family, and cats.

I replied to it so now I gotta post it. Even if I don't know you very well (or have to visit your page to get an impression of you) I'll give it my best shot.

Here are the rules. If you reply here...

1. I'll respond with something random about you.
2. I'll tell you which song or movie you remind me of.
3. I'll pick a flavor of jello to wrestle you in.
4. I'll say something that only makes sense to you and me.
5. I'll tell you my first memory of you.
6. I'll tell you what animal you remind me of.
7. I'll ask you something I've always wondered about you.
8. I'll tell you my favorite thing about you.
9. I'll tell you my least favorite thing about you.
10. If you play, you MUST post this on your own journal.

It's been seven years since I first posted A Private Heaven to fur.stories.erotica. Lately, however, I've been giving more thought to what would be involved in producing a dead-tree edition.

For that to happen, one thing that would be needed is cover art, and to get a full color commission for a cover image of the quality I'd hope for would probably run at least $100, plus it'd be nice to have a few interior illustrations as well. If the book doesn't sell all that well, I might never recoup what I'd have to pay for the artwork, unless perhaps there's an artist who would be willing to do it at a discount either for the exposure or for a fraction of the writer's take.

Another issue that come to mind are the question of whether to take it offline. Some authors/publishers take down the web version of the story except for a teaser chapter or two, but others (Bernard Doove, for instance) leave the entire works online and still have decent sales on the print editions. Or I could do what Fuzzwolf did with "Trevor's Tricks", which is to leave up all the stories published online but to produce some additional material for the print edition only (probably not a bad idea anyhow since the story is leaning toward the short end for being novel length material).

Finally there's the question of keeping the work under a pen name only. It's probably unavoidable that I'd have to disclose my real identity to the publisher and probably the artist, and I'd be okay with that, but I certainly wouldn't want it to appear anywhere in the print edition.

I know there were a couple of other hitches that came to mind, but they seem to have escaped me at the moment. Any feedback on the above (especially the artist question) would be welcome.

1) Post these rules
2) Post 8 true things about yourself
3) At the end you must tag 8 people and post their icons
4) Go to their page and send them a message saying you tagged them
5) NO TAG-BACKS

1. I attend church regularly.
2. I've never been to Las Vegas. It's somewhere on my list of things I'd like to do before I die, but not that close to the top.
3. Learning to ski is near the top of that list. I never imagined I'd get this far through my life without trying it.
4. 'StormKitty' is a secondary identity for me, which I use for most of the adult stuff, while I mostly keep to non-adult stuff under my primary identity. There are fewer than ten people to whom I have disclosed that we are both the same person.
5. I love to go driving and explore backroads.
6. If I ever remarry, I want it to be to someone who shares my interest in some of the kinks/BDSM that figure prominently in my stories and RPing.
7. My favorite classical composer is Ludwig van Beethoven.
8. I don't like watermelon.

I'm not going to tag anyone, but I hope a couple of you who haven't already done this meme will do so voluntarily.