Second month into 2018. How’re things looking? Well, as usual, I’ve got a few plates spinning.

The second year of the Size Riot writing contest has kicked off: all the stories for CruelJan18 have been submitted, and over February readers will take them in and evaluate them against each other. Even in the first week, I can see which are the most popular stories, but second to the joy of listening to the anguished cries of brilliant writers paring their work to under 2,000 words is the excitement of keeping secret the progress of the contest. There are some excellent stories this time around, very thought-provoking material (something about cruelty makes people very cunning and deep). Read them for fun, but seriously consider filling out the evaluation, too. New this time: it includes a short feedback form to anonymously give writers the feedback they crave.

On my Patreon account, I’m continuing “I Will Break You,” in which lecherous Derek is shrunken to a few inches tall, to be tormented and punished by Lynn, the hot young coworker he lusts after. Will he learn his lesson, or will he be ground into a paste? The other series, “Mine for the Taking,” has concluded: this was my giant man series, and I wrote it to challenge myself and to entice new readers who are into that kind of thing. But I took a poll as to what the next series should be after that, and the majority wants another shrunken-man-dominated story. Look forward “Screaming Video” soon.

Speaking of Patreon, that’s how I’m managing my commissions. Yes, I’m taking commissions now! And I’m still determining whether I’ve bitten off more than I can chew with these. So far, so good: I’ve got three lined up to complete by the end of February and the biggest challenge, ironically, is keeping them under the word limit. One guy gave me a story idea and I tripled the size of it, because I liked it so much. I didn’t charge him for it, but he tacked on some extra pledges to compensate me. Very honorable of him. So yeah, good experience with the commissions, which makes up for the petty hassle of the pirate bots I’m confronting on Patreon. Until they roll out their “pay up front” beta feature to me, I just have to accept the losses of fakey accounts signing up to read my material and default on payment.

I’m also playing around with preloaded and automated content. Buffer quit offering a content library right after I joined them with a paid account, but their partner Hiplay has taken up the slack. Now I’m going crazy with writing up a couple hundred tweets to direct people back to the flash fiction and short stories I feature in my blog. I’ve also tacked on Quuu, which posts literary and creative writing blog posts right in my TL on Twitter, and so far I’ve been very happy with their service. People have told me it seems natural, the material seems like stuff I would offer anyway, so this could be a convenient way to support the new and developing writers who follow me, as well as potentially attract new followers of related interests. That is, people who wouldn’t find me because they’re not searching for giantess/shrink-fetish stories, but they’re writers and readers who might be open to this realm of speculative fiction. You never know.

There’s one story I’m fighting to write out, refine, and complete for sale on Smashwords. But it’s been fighting me back for years, so I don’t know whether to pour the cobs on or kick it to the curb. Maybe it wasn’t supposed to be my idea at all.

Lastly, I want to do more original writing, and I fully recognize that I’ve started a ton of loose ends in Giantess World and my blog stories. I’ve added new chapters to “The GTS Deconstructions” and “The Fandom that Transcends,” with “Never Can Say Goodbye” coming up soon. In Google Docs I keep a page of story ideas and notes, in case I get so desperately bored and uninspired that I absolutely can’t come up with anything new to write about. To this I’ve added a list of a dozen ongoing series I’ve neglected and lined them up in chronological order: the oldest titles go at the top, and when I add to them, they move to the bottom of the list with a new date. The advantage to this, besides picking up the old series that readers have been waiting on, is in the variety of stories waiting for me to act on. This satisfies my need for the novel and diverse, so far. I’d like to get back into my story-a-day challenge, if possible, but I don’t want to just dwell on two favorite series or crank out a pile of one-offs. After all, I hate it when a writer has started an interesting idea and then peters out midway through. I don’t want to be like that.

There are other projects I want to develop, like more audiobooks with both me and a friend recording them. I’d like to get back into my artwork, if I can ever find the time for that. It’ll take some convincing to get the band together for a second giantess song, but I remain hopeful. And I have a big idea that I’m excited about, but it’ll have to sit on the back burner until I find my stride with everything else I’m doing.

Feel free to contact me with your own ideas and questions. I’d love to hear from anyone paying attention to this noise I make, whether you demand to see the completion of an old series or just want to speak kindly to a busy, disorganized writer of size-fantasy.

Special thanks to AarenWuzHere for my swank new avatar!