2022 Retrospective and 2023 Plans

Hi all!

I'm back after a somewhat unintentional vacation, and it's time for a round up post for 2022.  At the start of last year, I set a goal for more content over 2021, and I definitely succeeded in that.  Using some averages to account for refurbished things like "Nymph", I put down about 250,000 words of smut in 2022.  That's roughly half of War and Peace, so War.  

What Worked:

My pipeline went well all the way to October.  During the spring, I was rolling out new shorts every other week while working on the "chunk" story in the interim.  I capped off Mind Deviancy, leaving Evelyn waiting for her next adventure in a finishing school.  Ventitrax Experiements were fun and got a larger amount of engagement on kindle than I expected.  Neighborhood Bull didn't turn out exactly how I wanted, but I did end up proud of it.  I enjoyed developing it out on the patreon feed.  It has also proved to be running a marathon rather than a sprint.  Some other one offs were super fun to write.  Noir, Puff Piece let me play with some genre tropes, and things like Dirty Drinks and Moo-ful Milk let me go full raunchy.

Where things went off the rails:

Carnal Abbey threw a big ol' wrench into my plans for the back half of the year.  Frankly, I never exactly righted the ship from it, but I did patch the damage and pressed on.  The worst thing you can do as a writer is agonize over something not coming out the way you envisioned.  That's the thread that will unravel you.  Saying that makes it sound like Carnal Abbey was absolute trash, but that's not the case.  I really like big parts of it, but structurally it makes nearly no sense and the characters don't move in the way I intended.  After some time moping about it, I stuck it in a drawer and moved on to explore the idea of a cursed convent again in Convent of Sin.  And, I jumped back on the horse of "chunk" story writing with Vaught.

Onward to 2023!

As I said up above, I'm happy with the amount of content I put out last year.  I think setting a higher goal would result in more forced writing, and forced writing is bad writing, or at least writing you have to redo at some point.  

Instead, my main goal for this year is to even out the spikes and valleys in my workflow.  My non-smut responsibilities are mostly to blame for that pattern, so it's more of something to fix on that side, but having a level feed of content is better for my brain.  Part of that means getting my stories wrangled into a schedule where they can land at appropriate times.  First thing is first though, getting the mess from the back quarter of 2022 cleaned up.

Convent of Sin IV (Version 2.0) went up on the feed before this post.  I wasn't happy with the way the initial version of that story went.  The end was anticlimactic.  Much of the story was bogged down in explaining how German POWs could wind up in the midwest.  Version 2 cuts down on that and moves more quickly to the action.  There's also an introduction that sets the stage more clearly as to what is happening with the demons, the big bad, and why the Germans are targeted. This version also goes more into the grotesque/horror side of demons. Violence and general brutal treatment is upped, and that's before the whole metaphysical anguish side of things.

From there, I'm going to push on to the resolution of Convent of Sin as a top priority.  I like round numbers so the rest of it will probably break into four more chapters.

I have one more Oddlock vignette story, I think, but not entirely sure when I'll get that out.  Once I do, they will be bundled together into a novella-ish thing for kindle unlimited.  Since the actual stories are stand alones, I've been treating that as casually as possible.

Nymph's incredibly long awaited conclusion got pushed back, but it's right underneath Convent of Sin.  The whole series will be pruned up a bit to fit the same installment format as Convent.

Hard dates are always a mistake, but my intention is to resolve all of those threads by the end of February. Then Vaught will be back in the spotlight.  I'm eager to get back in to the Milktec world and push that story toward its chaotic conclusion.  At that point, I'll be back to fighting the pack of ideas to see which one gets written first.

As usual, stories will continue to roll over into the Archive or get posted to other websites.  Anything lingering off of the retail fronts will eventually end up there once I have it in a format that I want to publish it in.  The website will continue to update with new release information and other stuff every week.  The corresponding tweets may change subject to the chaos of that platform.  

Happy Reading

2022 was my best year on patreon, so thank you to all my patreons, those who stay constant and those who drop in and out.  Your enthusiasm and support make me eager to write more, better stuff.  I get a good number of dms about things and people tend to think that's bothering a creator.  Heck no, we love hearing from people who like our stuff.  Tell us what's working for you and what isn't.  The conversations I have with patrons ultimately shape the way I approach writing, helps keep things fresh for the reader, and helps keep my brain from getting mired down.

I'm excited for another year of smutty adventures.  Cheers, and Happy Reading!