“—and then she just said ‘I have to go’ and ran off!”
“That's… almost exactly what happened on our date. She didn't say anything else?”
“Nothing!” Amara collapsed onto her couch, her tail grabbing the water bottle from the floor. “I've been texting her, and I asked Tessa and Chloé to do the same, but no one has heard anything. I'm really worried, Nick.”
Nick sighed. “I know, I am too, I just don't know what else we can do. If she's not willing t...
We're so close to the end of the first book I've ever written! AHH! It's crazy how one day I was just like "I'm gonna write this little silly story thing" and now I'm like... doing it and I've written so much about her.
One thing I thought a lot about when writing these last few chapters (Like, 10 and onwards) was the length of them. The first two chapters were pretty short, I think around 4.5k words, but the chapters kept getting longer after that. The longest is, by far, chapte...
Amara stumbled through her front door, her body weak from the trek home. Even with Tessa helping her walk, she could feel the lingering radiant energy sapping her strength. Its sting came in waves, and a particularly nasty shock ran through her system just as she collapsed on the couch. She gestured to her front door, silently asking Tessa to close it.
"Another one?" the witch asked.
Amara nodded silently, clutching her sides as she waited for this spasm to pass. She briefly los...
Reaching Chapter 10 was really exciting as a milestone, mostly because it's a nice round number. After this, the milestone get a little more abstract - first book, 100k wordcount, things like that. Still, as someone that's churned through a lot of hobbies in the past, it was really nice to hit 10 chapters and not feel burnt out in the slightest.
I would say this chapter also marks a little bit of a turn in the narrative. Amara and Vee have been dancing around each other for a while now...
(Very briefly edited for Patreon compliance reasons.)
"The blue or the red?"
"Are you serious? The blue!"
"You sure? I kinda like the pattern on the red."
"You have green eyes, Nick. When she's staring longingly into them, do you want her thinking of Christmas?"
"Alright, fair point. Blue it is."
Nick hung the red shirt back up, then pulled the door closed. He dressed himself in the mirror hanging on the back of his closet, making sure every detail wa...
This chapter was really important as a way to start setting the stakes for the rest of the book. By introducing both the series of assumptions Vee is making, but also showing what she's preparing for, I'm hoping I did a good job in building some tension. There are a lot of assumptions being made, by pretty much everyone, so it'll be interesting to see how that all plays out.
I also made sure to explain that demons tend to leave traces of sulfur for the first time. I very briefly had an...
As Vee walked out of the store, she shrugged to reposition the heavy water jugs on her shoulders. The cashier had given her some funny looks when she'd left, but quickly turned his attention elsewhere, no doubt he'd seen weirder things at five in the morning. A few bags of other miscellaneous purchases hung from her arms as she made her way home, which was only a few blocks away.
The weight was negligible, especially now that she'd gotten better at enhancing her body's strength with he...
The start of this chapter was one reason that I reworked the end of the last chapter. Had I gone with my original draft, the slightly more light-hearted shenanigans of "Help I'm on fire I guess would need to fuck" would have felt a little jarring.
Unrelated to that, this does mark the first time I call Amara's abilities superpowers. (At least I think it is.) It's a parallel I try to avoid when possible, just because I feel like I'm writing in a pretty different genre, and there's no wa...
When Nick finally arrived, Amara was standing perfectly still in the middle of the living room, her hands held high. Fire surrounded her fingers and palms, and she was pretty sure she could feel heat emanating from her horns as well. Her phone lay on the floor next to her, its case blackened and warped.
"Niiiiick this is really scary!" She shouted. Fear kept her perfectly still, she didn't want to risk setting the place on fire.
Nick's eyes were wide, his chest heaving from the ...
This whole opening stretch is, surprise surprise, another bit of self indulgence on my part. I really wanted to stress that Amara's wings are impressively large, and introducing them before she figured out shapeshifting was very exciting, narratively.
In my mind, this is really where the frustration she's feeling turns around. In the past, it was mainly about feeling helpless despite her transformation, whereas now she's taken a liking to everything that's happening to her, and just wa...
Amara kicked off her covers as she yawned, stretching her arms over her head. Before she could finish, a loud thud caught her attention, and she groaned with frustration. Looking at her nightstand, she saw that her left wing now sat where her phone had previously been charging.
She pocketed her phone before moving to the middle of the room, where she stretched open her wings. When she flexed them, her wings had just enough space to open, so long as she didn't face the short wall, and sh...
2024-03-15 14:52:17 +0000 UTC View PostOh boy! Chapter 6! This one was a lot of— blah blah you know the line.
This is, by far, the longest Chapter I'd written by this point. It's almost 10,000 words! I won't lie, I was really tempted to add another paragraph or two somewhere, just to hit 10k, but I decided against it. The story had been told, and I'd hate to start a happen of hitting word quotas just for their own sake. Still, this chapter being so long did make me a little self-conscious when future chapters came up short...
2024-03-15 02:11:51 +0000 UTC View PostThe sleepover had mostly been a practical solution; Everyone was already out late, in the same place, and no one felt like walking home. Regardless, it proved to be a great idea, and they all stayed up much later than intended as they enjoyed each other's company.
The morning was close to over by the time everyone had woken up. Vee left first, muttering apologies about needing to study, and Chloé wasn't far behind. Tessa feigned a headache to stick around, but Amara suspected it wasn'...
I should really stop saying "This chapter was fun to write!" because I'm gonna say that for every chapter so it kinda loses its punch. Anyways. This chapter was fun to write!
We start on our mystery angel, who's ready to reveal more about what she's doing. Last time we saw her, I kept things pretty vague, and while there's still a lot of confusion in this chapter, it's certainly changed direction. Most of her first scene was building to the reveal that she's an angel, and with that out ...
2024-03-14 15:39:46 +0000 UTC View PostSulfur infiltrated her senses, and she turned as her feet hit the pavement. The clouds darkened, circling the quad as flames consumed the trees. She ran faster, weaving between students as she raced towards the demon responsible for this. Her blade appeared, dispersing the flames, and she leapt forward.
Her sword clattered to the ground, the demon’s clawed hands grabbing her throat. She tried to break free, but its hold was too strong. Its grip tightened, claws drawing b...
Ah, Chapter 4. I've thought about this one a lot ever since it went live on Literotica. It's my lowest rated chapter, by a considerable amount, and while I'm happy with how it turned out, I understand why.
There is, of course, the obvious reason - it's the first chapter without any sex in it. But even apart from that, I can't deny it's a bit of a slower chapter. The last stretch is mostly Amara searching through an empty building, which I'm sure isn't the most engaging content.
Be...
2024-03-14 01:39:06 +0000 UTC View PostNick’s eyes ran over the grocery list again, just for good measure. His grandparents lived alone, but had a habit of inviting friends over pretty frequently, so the list was extensive. Sure he hadn’t missed anything, he moved into a checkout lane.
The elderly cashier was extra chatty, and he happily asked about her day as he helped bag everything; She was exceptionally proud of her grandson, apparently he’d done great on his spelling test. Nick laughed with her as he swiped his ca...
2024-03-14 01:05:30 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 3 was a pretty intimidating chapter to write. A LOT happens here, and the scope of the story expands considerably. This chapter has our first scenes from a POV other than Amara, the first scenes from our mysterious angel, the first scenes with Tessa and Chloé, and just a whole bunch of other fun details.
I spent the entirety of the first two chapters attempting to keep things focused on Amara, to really establish her as the main character, but I knew this would be the perfect ...
The smell of sulfur filled her senses, her hair catching the wind as she turned to find the source. Grasping her necklace, she muttered a prayer and felt her senses heighten; It seemed to be coming from the center of campus. Excusing herself from the group, she moved quickly as the smell grew stronger.
The sky darkened, ominous storm clouds forming much too quickly. They began to spiral in, the epicenter focused over the quad. Breaking out into a run, she knew she was the ...
This Chapter continued giving me new things to think about as an amateur writer. Originally, the plan was to start immediately after Chapter 1, and have a bulk of the chapter be Amara panicking before testing what her tail could do. In the end, that felt a little slow, and I didn't want to write such a high emotion scene this early in the book.
Ultimately, I'm happy I started where I did. We get to establish that she's scared of being discovered, we see how she's hiding her tail, and we...
2024-03-12 14:21:00 +0000 UTC View PostAt the front of the classroom, the chemistry professor was droning on about the different steps of today's lab, and Amara was having difficulty paying attention. Every few minutes she found herself scanning the classroom, trying to catch if any of the other students were looking at her. Thankfully, nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but that would change in a heartbeat if anyone saw her tail.
In the past, Amara had taken pride in looking her best every day, always picking cute outfits ...
2024-03-12 13:55:34 +0000 UTC View PostThis is, unsurprisingly, where everything started. However, I mean that in a few different ways. Not only is this the start of Amara's journey, but it's also the start of mine. Before SaS, I'd never written anything before, other than the occasional recap of D&D sessions. For years, I'd tossed around the idea of writing smut, but I never gave it any serious thought until I happened across a story prompt on a community discord. My mind started racing, the story kept expanding, and before l...
2024-03-11 22:52:37 +0000 UTC View PostAmara paced back and forth in her room, her hands repeatedly clenching as she tried to steady her breathing. Thoughts raced through her head, each one trying to find meaning before another pushed it away. Her long brown hair, so perfectly curled the night before, now sat in a tangled mess. It bounced around with each frantic turn before she finally crashed back to her bed.
"Amara you idiot!" Her voice echoed through her room, her eyes absent-mindedly tracing cracks in the ceiling. Grab...
I know, I know, you're already here, so it's silly to announce it again, but I'm very excited about it nonetheless. I've always felt like a creator at heart, but it's been a heck of a journey discovering what it is I actually want to create. As a writer, I've found something special, something that really makes my heart sing, and I'm thrilled to have a way to share that passion with all of you.
So, you may be wondering, what exactly am I offering here? First and foremost, all of my pat...