The talented artist Omac inspired the character of Selina in the Shadowlust series, and he has a new pic over on his DeviantArt page.   It's one for the summer season.

Summer Time by OMac

I'm really hoping this July 4th weekend will give me a chance to kick myself into writing more.  I was doing all right at the beginning of the year, but my goal of a story a month has fallen away.  At least I've started over on Literotica, so I'm hoping I'll be able to do either free Literotica stories or ebooks depending on which I'm inspired at the time.

I guess I should have mentioned that I had to go out of town for the last week because of my job.  I suppose I should have been blogging about that, but there's really nothing too exciting about living out of a hotel for a week in a town with a population under 4000.   But that's over and....

It is good to be back home.

This GIF reminded me about the Independence Day sequel that's coming out.  I enjoyed the first one but I am not giving high expectations for the sequel.  It's always difficult to do a decent sequel and the trailers haven't convinced me this will be worth the price of a ticket.   I've read that the flop of After Earth is the reason Will Smith did not want to do another science fiction movie with a father-son theme.   I'm really not sure having him would help with a movie that feels more like a cash-grab rather than a legitimate sequel for the fans.  

A new short story of mine has been posted up on the free erotic story site Literotica.  This one helped end a dry spell of writing for me, so I'm really glad I was able to finish it.  In the future, I hope that posting stories like this will help keep me writing if things slow down again.

First Date

The story is about a guy who goes on a first date with a succubus.  It's an erotic comedy, and it has characters readers will recognize from the Shadowlust Series.   I think I will post short stories on Literotica to develop side ideas in the Penumbra setting that are not long enough for an ebook.  The ebooks will continue to follow the main plot ideas that I have in mind.

The community on Literotica is really active and I'm hoping to become more involved with it.  I've already used their volunteer editors and received some very helpful edits and suggestions.  (Thanks Redwings1201 and the one who asked not to be named :) )

This kind of thing might be what I need to remind myself to focus more on writing rather than spending time posting comments on gaming forums and 9Gag.

It's halfway through May already?  Where did the month go?

I've managed to complete a short story that I will be posting on Literotica shortly, and it was nice to finish it through the writer's block.  I'm thinking of asking some volunteer editors to look at it as well just to see what it's like working like that.  I hope I can stay on a roll and complete the next Shadowlust eBook while also trying to work on my Lovecraft-inspired story. 

Speaking of Lovecraft I saw this amazing picture over on the Cthulhu Reddit page.  I'd be willing to give that dish a try!  









Cthulhu Reddit post

I'm still trying to figure out how to make the layout of this blog less boring.  Now I have sections with the Shadowlust series of ebooks and that makes the blog look more lively.

Sometimes timing is everything.

I usually have horrible timing and I just try to prepare for it knowing that things will go wrong.  But sometimes, just sometimes, things go well. And sometimes they even go really well.

I try to do my taxes early, and I finished them online last month. Or at least I *thought* I did. It turns out they were not actually submitted even though the website said "Your taxes are done". I just found out today (17th) and I thought I'd be hit with a late fee, but this year taxes are due on the 18th because of Washington D.C. Emancipation Day.   That was a nice surprise.

Another shockingly good case of timing has been my lease renewal.  At this moment, I may not want to get into another year long lease, so I renewed for only 3 months which now gives me much more flexibility.

Now I'm starting to worry all this good timing is going to swing back, but then maybe my daily, low-level bad timing just keeps building up until I get bursts of good timing.  I guess that's not a bad way to have it :) 

I am back from my business trip and it has been a reminder to me that there are many jobs out there where one doesn't need to travel.  In fact, I dare say that most jobs in the world do not require getting on a plane to spend an entire week sleeping on a strange bed.  

That's not to say anything against who live that lifestyle or get fulfillment in the sense they are part of the 'movers and shakers' depicted so often in airline or hotel commercials.   But I rather believe there is a good amount of moving and shaking that can be done within one's own locality, and I have never had any need to find fulfillment in unfamiliar places.

Also unpacking sucks.