Volume 3, Issue 2 -- Tuesday, January 9th, 2018
Howdy, patrons!

There's a ton of excitement here at the Den and Burrow as My Husband (The Dragon) and I prepare for 2018's first major convention -- Further Confusion! It's taking place right in our backyard, so we'll be at the San Jose Convention Center hosting panels, hanging out, and having fun! I sincerely hope to see at least some of you there! (Seriously; let me know in the comments if you're planning to attend!)

At the day job, I had a "use it or lose it" situation with one of my time-off pools, so I decided to take off all this week. It's been a really chill few days, that's for sure -- I've had a lot of time to get some writing in, clean up a little bit, and get some much needed rest and relaxation. The dream is to actually get ahead of writing for once; that hasn't quite happened yet, but I have a good feeling that I can make it happen.

Part 3 of Boundaries will be posted on Wednesday, January 10th so folks who are just getting to FC will have a chance to peek in on the crew of the Starcarver before they leave; I know I said that I would be dropping two parts a week this month, but writing and editing haven't happened as fast as I'd hoped. Especially if I'm going to write ahead in order to make sure I'm releasing an episode a week, I'm going to need to throttle back on the release schedule so I don't break myself. My apologies for ALREADY breaking a promise this year -- I'll do my best to make it up to you!

These days I've become increasingly fascinated by storytellers who can nail a character in a really short amount of time; you see this most often on TV shows, where the ticking clock demands you handle exposition really efficiently. There are a lot of OTHER problems about the show, but 24 was masterful at setting up characters with just a few lines of dialogue -- within a minute of their appearance on-screen, you generally knew who they were, what their relationship to Jack Bauer (the main character) was, and what they wanted in the short-term. Other shows (and stories) can nail a character introduction with a really great entrance or image; one thing that really struck me was the very first shot in Steven Spielberg's "Bridge of Spies", where a man is looking at himself in a mirror. The camera pans back to reveal more of the room while the sounds of the city he's in fill the air. Eventually, you realize he's painting a self-portrait, taking what he sees of himself and translating that into art. It's...so profound, and given what we learn about this character later on the exercise ties directly into the themes and action of the film as a whole.

Given that Boundaries is intended as more of an ensemble story (we'll see more of this as time goes on), I've been really excited about the opportunity to get better at that aspect of storytelling -- having the reader instantly connect, or at least understand, with a character quickly. It's early days yet, so I'll have to learn how to calibrate what information is given when, but it's definitely a tool I'll want to have in my box.

Over at The Writing Desk blog (https://www.jakebe.com), I posted a retrospective on 2017; a look ahead at my goals for 2018; talked about the panels I'll be hosting at FC this year; and started up Fiction Friday this year with Veniamin Kovalenko, Werebear Detective! Head on over there if you'd like to take a look at any of those posts. This week, I'll be diving into politics a bit more and continuing Venia's ursine-noir story. :)

That's it for today, friends! I'll see you tomorrow for part 3 of Boundaries, and this weekend for a wonderful convention!

If you'd like to support gay serialized macro/micro fiction, please consider joining my Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/jakebeserials

Well, 2016 sure happened.

To be honest, I'm still trying to process everything that went down last year. As horrible as it was, I felt like the US election and the tone of social and political discourse in the country both before and after was a huge wake-up call. Now I know I can't depend on people to look out for their own best interests, especially if their fear and anger have been stoked to the point of falling into mob mentality. I know that a lot of people don't really care if the government comes after people like me, as long as it promises to "Make America Great Again". I know that if I want the world to change -- to be more compassionate, kind, and open -- I'm going to have to roll up my sleeves and get to work myself. We can't expect our government to fix all of our problems. We're going to have to step up.

At the very least, this means that I'm going to have to be more assertive about what I think and stand up for the things I believe in. I'm a ride-or-die liberal; I believe that health care should be available to every citizen of the richest country in the world and that there is no excuse to have so many people starving, homeless, and suffering. I believe in working hard for opportunity, but never forgetting to pay your fair share to the society that made your success possible. I believe that there is ample room for disagreement, but no room for views that treat any minority as inferior. I believe that people have a right to choose who they are, and that it really, truly is no big deal to let people decide which gender they want to be or opt out of the binary entirely if they so wish. It doesn't break anyone's back to respect someone's choices.

I expect that as I become more vocal about the things I believe in, I'll get some pushback from friends and followers here and elsewhere. I welcome conversation, and I appreciate my beliefs being respectfully challenged. I understand that a lot of other people have a lot of other opinions, and with so many questions in our society there isn't necessarily a single right answer. There is value in conservative principles -- small, efficient government or a focus on tradition or the idea that states and local communities are often in the best position to decide what's best for them. What makes our country truly great is the multitude of voices, experiences and attitudes that make it up. We all live together; we all share the successes and failures of our community. It's time we remember how to work together again.

That being said, I won't tolerate disrespect, bigotry or exploitation, and I won't tolerate the attitudes that allow that to fester and spread. As a writer, words are my most powerful weapon against the forces that aim to disconnect us, to subjugate one group for the benefit of the other, to keep power in the hands of a scant few who only want to abuse it. And it's time to stop being afraid of wielding that weapon because I'm inexperienced or not as talented as some.

So this year, I will write stories and essays that help me to make sense of where we are in this moment and time. I will also write stories that attempt to bridge my interests in the carnal and the philosophical, because erotic stories don't have to be empty or purely titillating. And I will write and post more things that are just smut, because I like big beefy guys getting bigger and beefier. :)

If you're interested in reading serialized erotic fiction featuring growth, transformation and a beginner's attempts at tying these to emotional themes or want to support my writing in general, please kick in to the Jackalope Serial Company on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/jakebeserials

If you'd like to read movie or comic reviews, essays on politics, the fandom, writing and storytelling, my blog is here: http://www.jakebe.com

I'll be posting stories and such here as they're completed. For now, Happy New Year folks!

The Marshmallow Ranch Gazette
Issue #1 - February 1st, 2016

Howdy partners and welcome to the first issue of the Marshmallow Ranch Gazette! This'll be a brief weekly post that lets you know what's up with the Jackalope Serial Company, and when you can expect the next part or two of the current serial! Keep an eye out here for news about special patron rewards, as well as patron-only specials!

THE CULT OF MAXIMUS
Part 4 for the current serial wasn't posted last week, and I sincerely apologize about that. I may have mentioned that my day job was sending me to New York City for a spell, but I thought that I would be able to deliver anyway. Unfortunately, that just wasn't the case; I couldn't get the writing done before I left, and between work events and exploring the nightlife with my husband there was simply no time at all for writing.

I'm planning part 4 to be up a little late this week as well; I have a midterm to prepare for in my Project Management class, and my first on-call weekend for the day job once I make it through that. Fear not, though! The next part will be up on Friday, February 5th -- I sure appreciate you holding out until then!

Next week, I would like to post part 5 (ending chapter 1) and part 6 (the beginning of chapter 2). Hopefully life will cooperate with me. I'm putting a plan in place to write myself a little buffer so there won't be any further interruptions for a while!

MARSHMALLOWS
Extra bits of story, writing streams and other surprises are coming! I missed the January extra for patrons at the Golden Grahams level and beyond, but don't worry -- it's coming this week. And to all patrons who stuck with me through the bumpy month I'll have a special surprise, a story that has not been published online anywhere yet!

For the January Golden Grahams reward, patrons donating at $10/month and above will receive a wallpaper version of the JSC launch poster, done by Cooner! And all patrons will get to see "Family Trees", a macrophile story I wrote for MegaMorphics, before it's published anywhere else!

I'll check in with you to see what you would like most for February marshmallows -- side stories featuring characters in The Cult of Maximus? Written character sheets? Writing streams? Skype discussions? Let me know in the comments!

OTHER WRITING
I'm THIS CLOSE to finishing the first draft of "A Stable Love", a commission that was made a couple years ago that I'm finally making good on. With permission from the commissioner, I'll post that here first; otherwise, I'll need to wait until I make an editing pass and the commissioner approves. After that, I'll be working on a submission to People of Color Destroy Science Fiction and then another commission for someone who was generous enough to donate to my Clarion Write-A-Thon fundraiser last year. As soon as these stories are done (and I'm not submitting them for publication), you good folks will get to see it first as a thank you for believing in me enough to throw some cash my way.

That's it for this week; I'll catch you on Friday with part 4. Until then, take care!

Erotica has always been a hot button issue in the furry community. Does good erotica only touch the base desires that motivate most of us? Or can it stimulate us intellectually and emotionally? Many of the writers in our fandom have tied the erotic to the emotional so strongly that their audiences are turned on because they're so attached to these characters. What if there was a story that released installments not every year or two -- but every week? Featuring characters you could relate to, find arousing and potentially be in some cases?

I would like to introduce the Jackalope Serial Company -- a Patreon that offers serialized erotic fiction in weekly installments! For as little as one dollar a month, you'll get a part of a story that features both physical and emotional growth and transformation every Tuesday! If you would like to donate more, you'll be able to get behind-the-scenes access to the creation process, the chance to vote on which serials will be worked on, and the possibility of creating a supporting character in the story!

I've been a tremendous fan of our erotic writers for such a long time -- Kyell Gold, KM Hirosaki, SuperWaffle, Nex Anima Canis, Kbob, Tshaw/Kyrugii and others have been the standard bearers for stories that are not only arousing but deeply affecting. Many of these authors have even applied their talents to serial fiction; the seven-part series by SuperWaffle and the episodic tales from Nex Anima Canis are simply tremendous.

My writing has appeared in many different furry anthologies and other publications, but it's tremendously exciting to me to apply my work to episodic storytelling. I love exploring ideas and themes in depth, charting the growth of characters over a longer period of time, and giving the audience space to really fall in love with not only the people who inhabit these stories but the world they're in. This Patreon project allows me the best opportunity to release stories with a serialized structure and you -- the audience -- to involve yourselves in a tale that you will find intellectually and sexually stimulating!

The first story told through the Jackalope Serial Company will be THE CULT OF MAXIMUS:

Thomas Beckett is a beat cop in the bustling, idyllic city of Fogport. He has a great life -- a loving and stable relationship with Kai, his dancer boyfriend; an understanding with his partner, the foul-mouthed and short-tempered rabbit Jeremiah Jones; and a job that allows him to keep his city safe.

However, like most large metropolises, there is something lurking in the shadows between the buildings. There has been a rash of disappearances among the homeless and elderly that the police department has been helpless to solve, and when Tom's partner becomes personally involved he must jump into the investigation himself. What he uncovers is a conspiracy well beyond anything he could have imagined, and now he's a part of it!

Tom must learn the secrets of the Cult of Maximus before he -- and everyone he loves -- becomes their latest victim. Can he undo their shadowy work from the inside, or will he be corrupted by the strange power they wield?

If you're curious about the kind of work I write, feel free to look at samples here:

The Bite (Part One)
The Test
Friday Fiction (jakebe.com)

This is my sweet spot -- stories that, little by little, tell satisfying tales featuring complex characters while illuminating the world they habit one piece at a time. If that sounds like your idea of a good time, please head over to my Patreon and join in! Making a monthly donation will assure me that this is a viable distribution model, and give you the chance to join a community that will have an impact on the story!

If you like my writing and would like to support it, please consider becoming a patron! You will be a part of an exciting new frontier of storytelling and encourage me to tell the kinds of tales I've always wanted to tell!

Hey folks! It's been a little while since I've written anything here or been active at all -- sorry about that. I spend most of my time on Twitter and Tumblr as it turns out, and I've been largely absent here while I figure out the best way to use each website. I had hoped that I could spend some time just browsing around, seeing what the community was like, but ain't nobody got time for that! So for now, I think the best thing to do is just dive right in and see what happens.

I've been writing. A lot. Most of what I've been working on isn't ready to show yet, but I can say that I'm legitimately excited about it. There have been a lot of mental issues that have been blocking me from making progress on the things I'd like to do, and I've been slowly and surely putting myself together so I can be more productive on the writing front. So expect to see more from me in the future!

For now, I'm going to be editing and posting stories that I've written for MegaMorphics. The reason I haven't done that before now isn't because I only wanted the "privileged few" to see them and screw everyone else -- it's because I knew the stories weren't as good as they should be, that I had written them to get them out by the deadline (which admittedly is a useful thing), and that I hoped to polish them at some later point to make them worthy for publication online.

But that's the perfectionism talking, to be honest. I think at this point I would just show what I've got, sketchiness of the stories and all, and see what people thought of them. This is also good practice for posting stories here, since I plan on doing that a bit more and all. :)

Anywho, you can find more of my more general-purpose writing every Friday over on jakebe.com, where I write about political issues, mental health, writing, movies, television, storytelling and all kinds of personal business. For now, I hope to have the first story in the archives up by Sunday or Monday. Until then, have a great weekend everybody!

I've been a member of a local furry writing group for some time, and one of our members was accepted into the Clarion Workshop a few years ago. He came back from the experience a changed fur; full of new insights into the broader sci-fi/fantasy fandom, excited about engaging with the wider world and confident that furry fiction can find an audience beyond our fandom. Ever since then, we've been slowly dipping our claws into the bigger pond of genre fiction.

A couple years later, my dear husband and the love of my life NotTube was accepted into the Clarion Workshop as well -- in fact, he's there now learning about writing and publishing genre fiction from some of the established names in the field. I couldn't be prouder and more excited for him, and as a show of solidarity I'm participating in a fundraiser for the workshop called the Clarion Write-a-Thon.

The Write-a-Thon is just what it sounds like; a period of intensive writing where you try to hit a particular goal while the actual Workshop is going on. Friends and fans of your writing are welcome to donate towards the Workshop or pledge a dollar amount based on that goal -- personally, I'm asking for a mere .001 of a cent per word. If I hit my goal of 50,000 words written by August 2nd, that'll work out to a pledge of $50.

Thanks to the astonishing generosity of friends and fellow furries, I've been fortunate enough to hit my goal of $500 raised for the Clarion Workshop, but there's still a lot of work to do! The Write-a-Thon is over half done, and we're a long way from raising $20,000 for future classes to be able to take part in this wonderful, intensive experience. The money will go towards making sure the Workshop can attract the top talent in the sci-fi/fantasy genre as well as providing financial aid to those aspiring writers who would like to go but find the costs of going to a six-week workshop in San Diego prohibitively expensive. It's most definitely for a good cause!

And what's in it for you? Well, I'm glad you asked! If you're a fan of my growth-related vignettes and stories here, then making a small donation will encourage me towards my goal of providing a lot more of it! I'm writing short stories with an eye towards furries, macrophiles and other sci-fi/fantasy fans alike! I'd like to edit and post them either here or submit them for publication in anthologies and magazines. I'm hoping that by the end of the summer I'll be able to have a number of stories ready to show off!

If you'd like to help push me to write more as well as secure this wonderful resource for aspiring writers, please visit my author's page here and make a donation: http://www.clarionwriteathon.com/me.....riterid=599479

If you'd like to keep up with my writing progress and read excerpts of the stories I'm working on, feel free to head over to my blog here: http://www.jakebe.com.

I would appreciate any encouragement you're able to give -- from a monetary donation to suggestions for stories to feedback on excerpts that have been posted. Kicking in to this drive will also let the broader genre community know that we furries are a force to be reckoned with, and that we're interested in sci-fi/fantasy at large!

I feel like I'm failing at the whole fundraising part of this thing because I haven't talked it up nearly enough, but that will change starting today! As I've mentioned before, I'll be participating in this year's Clarion Write-A-Thon, where my goal is to write 25,000 words of "Unstable Future" by the time it ends on August 5th. You can help provide encouragement by sponsoring me or pledging money for a certain word count, and the money goes to the Clarion Workshop so that aspiring writers can be taught by established authors in the sci-fi/fantasy field.

WHAT IS CLARION?
Let's start here: the Clarion Workshop is a wonderful thing where writers who are hoping to make careers writing in the sci-fi/fantasy genre can get instruction on various aspects of the craft and business of writing from established authors. Clarion's been around since 1968, and their list of instructors are pretty impressive: John Scalzi, George RR Martin and Ellen Datlow have taught in years previous and just this year Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill and Cory Doctorow are workshopping with the latest crop of hopefuls.

It's a tremendous opportunity for those of us in the genre to build lasting relationships with aspiring and established writers, learn about taking our writing to the next level and focus intensely on our work for six weeks with people who are just as passionate about creating as we are. I've got a bit of a personal stake in this, since good friend Kyell Gold is a graduate of Clarion and husband Ryan Campbell applied just this year. In a few years, I hope to apply.

Clarion isn't free, alas. It takes money to run the workshop every year and attract the talented writers who provide instruction. Writers who are accepted to Clarion are frequently offered financial aid in order to take advantage of the opportunity, and that takes donations from people to make possible. This is where you and I come in -- I work on a project that I've been wanting to write for quite some time, and in return for updates, story snippets and (eventual) full-blown release, you donate money to a great cause! It's win-win, right?

WHAT IS UNSTABLE FUTURE?
"Unstable Future" is a really great universe that was created by a talented fellow named Neopuc. He's written a 15-part short story series that you can go and read over on SoFurry, a repository for furry fiction and art. (Before you click through the link, be forewarned: while the story itself isn't explicit, there are other parts of the site that are.) I really loved the idea of it, and wanted to play around in that sandbox for a while. So I've been noodling around with a set of short stories of my own, set in a different part of the world that uses the same premise.

The plan is to write 13 parts of one big story, and release them on a weekly basis to constitute a 'season' of fiction. It's a model that I really love the idea of, and it seems to be something that is catching on -- especially with digital platforms. My story will be available for free, once it's ready for release, and I'll let you know where you can find it when it's ready. For now, though, I want to focus on writing as much as possible. Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves, right?

As for the story itself, if focuses on Abernathy Jones, a Rabbit farmer whose family was one of the first settlers of Oleander City. Oleander is a small town established more than a century ago, during the wild times after war precipitated the downfall of a society capable of uplifting animals to sentience, engineering them into human shapes and many, many more technological wonders. There has been an influx of science and technology firms, treasure hunters and university students since ruins of the old world were discovered sitting beneath the city, and Abe has been resistant to the change of his community from slow-paced agrarian settlement to fast-paced tech hub. When the recently discovered technology starts to inflict Oleander's population with impossible changes, Abe must step up to become an unlikely leader in the fight to save his town.

I've posted small snippets featuring Abe every Friday last month, just to get my head around him. I'm quite excited to dig into this story now, and I hope you are too. If you'd like to help out the Clarion Foundation and help encourage me through the project, feel free to visit my author page (http://clarionwriteathon.org/member.....riterid=177495) and either sponsor (make a straight-up donation) or pledge (promise a donation based on word count, days written, etc). I'll be incredibly grateful for your support, as well as the chance to help out an organization I'm really excited about.

I'll post up my first snippet over at the Clarion homepage, and I'll offer weekly updates and small snippets here every Friday. Hopefully we can reach the goal of $250 raised by August 3rd!

I'm sure all of you know by now that I'm active occasionally on writing.com under the nom de plume (I love that phrase) "TKAmis". I drift in and out of interactives that interest me, when I have the time and inclination to contribute.

There's been a LOT of folks focusing on the female side of growth, muscle growth and breast expansion, and while that's all well and good if it's your thing, I prefer something a little more male-oriented. Since there didn't seem to be too many interactives skewing that way, I thought I would make one, and here it is!

http://www.writing.com/main/interac.....-Muscle-Growth

I 'created' a collection of four scenarios that I thought it would be fun to play with; while I definitely want to include macro and muscle growth, I'd also like to have folks with a decent sense of character and plot advancement, just to make the ride that much more enjoyable. If you're interested, go over there and check it out! There's not much to the story just now, but I'm sure we can get it to grow properly, in time. :)

Hello folks!

 kindle had the wonderful idea of organizing a Furry Writing Week, where you post about the work you're writing so that people can take a look at the work you're writing as you're writing it. You post about what you've done on Twitter, FA or your signal boosting mechanism of choice, and update folks every day!

I missed updating folks yesterday, but I wrote about 400 words on a story I'm writing as a 'gift' for RaskHusky. I'm about 2600 words into it so far, and I think I'm finally getting the hang of it.

I've also been writing interactive chapters for a couple of stories started by friends of mine -- Sylvan and JamesFoxes, to be exact. Those total about 2000 words or so, so I've been averaging 1200 words in the past two days. Not too bad!

Here are the links to the Google Docs where I'm writing, if you care to take a look!

"Tough Fit", for Rask Husky: https://docs.google.com/document/d/.....it?usp=sharing

Writing.com Interactive Story Chapters:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/.....it?usp=sharing

I'll try to update this journal every day, to let you guys know what I've worked on.

Seeing as how most of my journals last year have been pleas for voting in the Macro Games, I figure it'd be a good idea to start out the new year in a completely opposite direction. :)

 rooth had this great idea for a meme, and I feel the need to copy it. So here goes!

Whenever I do something nice for someone, and they feel the need to reciprocate, I will sometimes wave them off and tell them to "pay it forward". I also like games/raffles, that kinda thing, and it's been a while since I did something like that. So when I came across dartjunkie's pay it forward journal, I decided to engage.

If you like to do the pay-it-forward thing on occasion, too, then this is game is for you. =)

Here's how it'll work. I'll pick 4 people out of 10 at random using this method for a fair draw. To get on the list, you have to be one of the first 10 people to comment below with a link to a journal post offering the same or similar deal, for 4 recipients. (if you don't take FA notes, leave your email address). Doesn't have to be exactly the same method, you can pick people however you like, but there has to be 4 recipients. After the 10th comment, I will do the random.org drawing using the randomizer from the date of the 10th comment (server time).

If you win, I'll contact you and get your shipping address, Steam account name (if you have one), and a character reference along with ONE word. If you back out, or if you game the system somehow (e.g., your journal post has since been deleted), I'll go to the first runner-up in the random.org results.

What do you win? Well, similar to dartjunkie's offer -- at SOME point in 2013, at a time of my choosing, and with an artist of my choosing, I will include your character in a clean, general audience, and platonic commission I buy that will incorporate the word you provided with your character reference. In addition, I will send you something of interest or value. Won't be much. Might be an interesting book I found, or a "spiffy bauble I found whilst window shopping" (D's words! :)), or something from my house, or a Steam game you don't have, or maybe a short story of some kind. I dunno what it'll be. I also don't know WHEN it will be. It'll be a surprise. ;)

Don't be a nudge. In other words, you're not allowed to pester me about it, or make requests for specific things, or make suggestions as to what would go over better for you, and so forth. Unless it gets to 2014, and I haven't made good on my end of the bargain.

Ready? Set? Post!

Hello all!

If you're reading this, then you're probably a huge fan of Kindle and his Macro Games. They've been a HUGE undertaking, and the big tiger deserves an awful lot of credit for sticking with them so far. It's an ungodly amount of participants, and he's had to deal with late-comers, rules tweaks, controversies and real life to get to this point. Kindle, you're truly truly awesome. Way to go. :)

But it's that time, and I have to say that I need you guys now more than ever. I've had a really rough run so far in these games -- I'm pretty sure the only reason I'm still in it is because I've been partners-in-justice with KingDead all this time. The random elements of the game simply haven't broken my way, but if you read the end of Round 3, Part 2, you'll see all that might finally change. Will it? Well, here's where you come in.

The rules state that only THREE people will make it to the finals, and votes will be a much more important part of that decision this time around. People can only vote for one person now, and I've love for it to be me. At this point, the Macro Games have been totally dominated by dragons and big cats, and now's the chance for all the herbivores to strike a blow for our kind! I have a lot of great friends who are dragons and big cats; they're great folks, make no mistake. But isn't it time that a jackalope became the standard-bearer for bigness? I think so. If you do too, vote for me!

Here's how you do it. Just take a second of your time and go to this journal: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4060681/

Add a comment with my name. The vote is logged, and each one puts me that much closer to the finals. It's a tiny investment on your part, but it means a lot to me. I'd definitely appreciate it!

If you'd like to catch up on the Macro Games so far, here's the links to the entire series:

Introduction: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/7349804/
Round One (Parts I and II): http://www.furaffinity.net/view/7478863/
Round One (Part III): http://www.furaffinity.net/view/7590658/
Round Two: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/8066906/
Round Three (Part I): http://www.furaffinity.net/view/8306641/
Round Three (Part II): http://www.furaffinity.net/view/9323290/

When you're done, don't forget to vote for me here: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4060681/

Thanks all. :)

This has been a pretty rough week of work for me, and for some reason my coping mechanisms for stress have just fallen by the wayside, one by one. I'm behind on just about all of my writing projects as a result, and I'll be trying to prioritize all of them this week so I can catch up.

The Titan's Championship League story should be up in one or two days, I'm hoping, and I'm aiming to have Week 3's story done by this Friday. I'm also working on finishing a couple of short stories for friends that, with luck, you should see in October if they'll allow it.

Sorry about that guys, I'm working on being more consistent in the future!

Wow, July just flew by! I spent most of it on vacation -- me and my husband (along with a couple other awesome guys) went to Seattle, then Vancouver, then Yellowstone. We spent a day in Salt Lake City, even, before heading back home. I have to tell you, there's a lot of awesome stuff out there in the world. I love how delightfully quirky Seattle and Portland are, and I fell in love with Canada while I was in Vancouver. Yellowstone was every bit as beautiful as I thought it would be, though I can now live my whole life without smelling another thermal vent at this point. Oh! and the Salt Flats of Nevada? Simply gorgeous! We even saw tread marks on it, which made me think of The World's Fastest Indian, which is a great movie if you've never seen it.

I've also been involved in something called the Clarion Write-A-Thon, and that's been taking the bulk of my time. I didn't quite make my fundraising goal of $400, but I'm pretty confident that I'll make my word count goal of 40000 in six weeks. I've had a couple of projects there that I'm working on, and I might put up one or two chapters of them here to see how they land. The work has been really rough on them so far, but the concepts are also kind of high, and it'll take a few passes to really feel like I've nailed it.

Anyway, when the work on that gets a bit too hairy I've been working on several interactive stories over on writing.com. I think it's been fantastic practice for getting certain things right -- in one chapter, I can work on dialogue between characters, and in another I can work on description, and in yet another I can try writing out an action scenes -- and there are a really great group of guys doing work there. I highly recommend giving it a glance if you're inclined towards writing, or if you just like macro and muscle growth tinged with a flair for the dramatic. :) Most things read like a furry macrophile soap opera, but hey, there's room in the world for that, isn't there?

This week is the last one for the Clarion Write-A-Thon, and from there I'll be trying to focus on short stories that I can publish here. Most of my ideas are for serials and the like, but I would like to come up with a set of one-and-done stories that might share the same universe, perhaps. It would be nice to work on something knowing that I can set it down once it's over, with no obligation to pick it up again. I'll have to see what I can do about that.

At any rate, that's where I've been and what I'm up to. What are you guys doing?

Hello all!

First, I would like to say thank you so much for voting for me so far. I've been getting pretty unlucky with the bonuses and such, so your votes are pretty much the only thing that have gotten me in this far. You guys are awesome!

The time has come to vote for the next round of the Macro Games. I'm in the lower half of the survivors so far, so I could really use your help to get me over the hump. Would you folks be so kind as to vote for me, and then go and tell your friends to vote for me as well? I promise I will be a wise and benevolent ruler of the world if I win. :D

Here's the page to vote: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3501026/

Right now the top ten is dominated by lions, tigers and dragons. It's time to end the carnivorous monopoly on mega-giants. It's the rabbit's time now!!

Hello guys!

I barely squeaked into the second round of Kindle's Macro Games. Thanks bunches to everyone who voted for me so far!

Now voting for the next round has begun, and I could really use some support -- it seems like most people are going dragon-crazy over there, and I think it's time that some herbivores and other mythicals were well-represented, don't you?

Go here (http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3271605/) and vote for me, along with two other macro-furs that you'd love to see rise (nyuk!) to prominence in the story. :)

I have to admit that I'm a huge sucker for interactive stories on the Internet. Since I've discovered the first one over at Choose Your Own Change, I've been an avid (yet discerning) reader and an occasional contributor. Every time I think that I should leave the various sites I've made my haunts over the years, I end up coming back to them in a few months. Sure, I should get that ambitious macrophile serial of mine off the ground, but someone's actually created a story about X-Men's Beast getting all huge and stuff!

It's time to accept that interactive stories are never things that I'll ever completely abandon, even though there are many times I want to. The stories over on Choose Your Own Change have largely descended into weird fetish territory -- one person will hijack every thread they can to turn the characters into donkey-boys (yes, like Pinocchio), and then someone will come along a week later and try to change everyone into clowns. People will do this with werewolves, Pokemon, dragons and all kinds of things. So the stories are really...disjointed, to say the least. The worst thing? The writing is just atrocious. I mean, unintentionally hilarious in its awfulness.

There was another site for a while called Furventure.com, and it had a number of really great interactive story seeds. Unfortunately the site went down a few years ago and has yet to recover. It might be worth it to see who'd be interested in opening it up again, creating three or four 'starter' scenarios and then letting the talent of the fandom run off with it. I would, but I barely have enough time management skills for the stuff I *do* want to do.

So that leaves writing.com as the last best place for interactive fiction, and there's quite a lot of good things there. Sure, a lot of it features really weird stuff, like diapers and humiliation, all kinds of...unsavory bodily functions...and well, we won't go into what else. I'm sure you guys are quite capable of finding the horror show on your own.

However, there are a number of really great interactives out there waiting for really great writers to jump in and give it a shot! Here are five of my personal favorites, the ones that I tend to add to whenever I can.

A Changing Perspective: Dragonien started this as an offshoot of the "Anthrosaur" interactive, and it's got a good head of steam going. You choose to follow the stories of two different dragons, a human, a big jocky wolf, or another fur/human of your own choosing. I've only submitted one chapter there so far, but I'm definitely going back for seconds, there.

Beast's Size: Beast from the X-Men with muscle growth, size growth, weight gain and...perhaps other things. As a Beast fanatic, I have to admit I can't resist this. You can certainly add other characters from the Marvel universe to join in the fun, but Beast is the star of the show, and that's something that you can't say too often. As an added bonus, Inuyasha is actually pretty good about giving Gift Points for good chapters...if you're into that sort of thing, that is.

I'll Be Here: This is kind of a different one. Another story where furs and humans interact with each other, the main characters are a human and a fur who end up in trouble together and more often than not fall in love. You get muscle or size growth, a neat situation that's great for driving a narrative, and something other than the "OMG I'M SO HUGE NOW" stuff you see with a lot of growth stories.

The Biggest Change: When I have a megamacro itch that needs to be scratched, this is the story I end up coming to. Unfortunately it hasn't been added to in quite some time, but it's a really great idea with a lot of really neat settings just waiting to be explored. I'll definitely have to be coming back to this
one!

Through A Warped Glass: House of Mirrors: Sylvan started up this story of personal transformation and hopping through various dimensions, and it's another one of those really neat settings that you can go just about anywhere with. Of course, there's size growth, muscle growth, hyper-sexualized figures, shrinking, TF and all kinds of other changes there. It's a veritable smorgasbord!

All right, so those are my favorite five, though there are quite a few other interactives that might be up your alley. If you haven't ever visited writing.com, I recommend it! The community there is pretty neat, and even though the writing is of questionable quality a lot of the time, there's still a chance that you'll find really good threads and a group of pretty good writers!

A word to the wise, though: make sure that you have a Flash blocker for your browser before you enter the site. And, just to be safe, an ad blocker as well. The ads can be insanely annoying (sounds and flashing colors and pop-ups), and I've contracted a virus there before. It's really odd to say "Go here, there are great stories!" and then warn you that you might be infected with malware if you do, but I wanted to make sure people are taking the proper precautions.

Have any of you guys been to writing.com? If so, what do you think of the stories there? Got any to recommend? Are there any other interactive websites that I've missed?

Hey there guys!

So Kindle is holding a Macro Games tournament here: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3157274.

It turns out that a few folks have jumped out to a huge lead and I'm hoping that some of you guys might help narrow the gap a little bit by voting for me. You DO want to see giant jackalopes, don't you? ;)

- J

Hello all!

I'm still working on chapter four of the Texas Hold 'Em story. I should have it up in a day or two!

In the meantime, I would like to talk about the Ursa Major nominations. They're open for the 2011 awards from now until Feb. 29th, and I was wondering if you guys would take the time to nominate your favorite furry works of the past year. The awards have gotten a little bit of flack for various reasons over the years, but I think that those guys offer a pretty neat service. It's up to US to make it 'legitimate' by offering up works we truly believe represent the best that furry has to offer.

I don't have anything that's eligible for the awards this year, but my dear husband does. Smiley and the Hero was his debut novel, published through FurPlanet, and though I'm probably biased I have to say that it's really good. He worked really hard on it, and I think he has a reason to be proud of it. If you've read it and think it deserves a place among the nominees for Best Anthropomorphic Novel, I would really appreciate you going to the Ursa Majors website and voting for it.

Here's the link for the nomination form: http://www.ursamajorawards.org/nominations.htm

And if you haven't picked up Smiley and the Hero yet, it's available in dead tree edition here: http://furplanet.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=494 and e-book edition here: http://www.amazon.com/Smiley-and-th.....565&sr=1-1

Hello all!

I thought I would announce the closing of the poll for part 3 as well as the results. Here they are!

1. Who should win the next hand?
Bart (4 votes), Fallon (5 votes), Richard (1 vote)

2. Who should break their chair first?
Liam (0 votes), Bart (7 votes), Sojourn (3 votes)

3. Who should make the first move on one of the other players?
Charles (2 votes), Liam (2 votes), Richard (6 votes)

The winner of the next hand was really close, but Fallon ended up coming out on top! I'm really looking forward to writing the next chapter, which should hopefully be up by January 20th.

In the meantime, I'd really like to get your feedback on the writing. How do you feel about the characters and descriptions? Is there something else I should be focusing on more in later chapters? What sort of things would you like to see happen next?

I appreciate you guys being into the story so far, and hopefully each little bit gets better from here on out!

I was really hoping that I wouldn't have to do this, but I'm afraid I'll have to delay the third installment of the Hold 'Em story. Work has been pretty busy, we've had company for quite some time during the early part of the month and now that I'm through that I'm going straight for a jaunt out of town to visit my husband's family for the holidays. That brings with it no small amount of stress and preparation, and in addition to *that* I have two other short stories that I MUST get done by the end of the month at least. It's going to be a busy two weeks or so.

This is a disappointment mainly because I walked into December fully aware of my workload and everything that was going to be happening but I thought I could handle it. I really should have been more cautious, especially because I have notoriously awful project planning and time management skills. I was hoping that making myself publicly accountable would be just the kick in the pants I needed to hold to my deadlines, but that appears not to be the case. As a result, I'll be a lot more patient with all of my favorite webcomic authors from now on. ;)

At any rate, I'd like to lay out my new new plan: Chapter 3 of Hold 'Em will be available on January 5th, 2012 with chapter 4 scheduled for January 20th. Let's ease back on the ambitious schedule for the sake of something more realistic. There are two or three other short stories I'll hope to have edited and ready for public consumption throughout next month. I won't say any more than that, because my track record for delivering on my promises haven't been very good so far.

On a somewhat related note I find it utterly amazing that artists and writers can churn out any sort of work on a regular basis. I'm having a terrible time managing any sort of consistency; every time I think I have a handle on things life gets in the way. Work has been so crazy that it's been quite hard to string two sentences together in the afternoons and evenings. I've also been trying to get back on the stick with the diet, clean up the apartment and get back into running. Also learn French. My willpower is a finite source, and it's running out more and more often these days. When I sit down in front of the computer, there's the choice between doing something productive with my time and just reading stories on Yahoo!, Entertainment Weekly or io9. Guess which option I choose nine times out of ten?

Someone once said that "discipline is doing what you want most, as opposed to doing what you want now." I suck at discipline, but I'm trying to improve it. I want to be a good writer. I want to tell good stories. Way more than I want to be caught up on all of the entertainment news floating around on the Internet. I'll keep pushing myself to make sure that I am, but I'll keep falling down like this. Hopefully, over time, it'll happen less and less.

As you might imagine, I didn't really intend for it to be this long between chapters of the Hold 'Em tournament story. One thing lead to another, of course, and before you know it the schedule's all shot to hell. Sorry about that, but the next spot should be up soon and there'll be another opportunity for folks to vote on what they want to happen next. Hopefully you guys will like where things are going!

This whole thing was supposed to be an exercise to write quickly and consistently, to build up a presence here and well, get people to read what I have to write. That way, when other stuff comes down the pike hopefully there's an audience there waiting to take it in and get feedback. I don't think it's cynical to be honest with you and say that I'm trying to build up an audience, a community of sorts, to support my writing. I'm just really bad at being regular so far.

Anyway, I think it might help if I told you guys my plan for the sake of public accountability. As the great Lisa Simpson said in "The Simpsons" last night, "A deadline is the good swift kick in the pants I need to really get writing." It almost never works, but at least when I fail THIS time I'll have the added guilt brought by not being able to keep a promise I made on the Internet!

The plan is to have a new chapter of "Hold' Em" out every ten days -- or around three times a month. This should give you guys a good five days to vote on the poll questions and myself another five days or so to write the next chapter, which will go up after writing and spot-editing. Each chapter should be around 3000 - 5000 words or so, which is a pretty good length for a couple of hands, some dialogue, and maybe the small bow of a character arc. Hopefully writing this sort of group scene will get me better at writing distinct personalities and voices, writing dialogue and setting up conflict quickly and efficiently. I want the guys to be at odds, but not to the point of physicality. Well, not beyond a good angry power-fuck anyway. Someone could get hurt!

So, in addition to "Hold 'Em," other serials and short stories should be coming eventually. There are some things I've written for publication elsewhere that didn't quite work out, so it'd be really neat to edit those and see if I can take another stab. There are also little vignettes of 1000 - 2000 words that I'm trying to write on a frequent basis that I could start putting up.

All that considered, I'd like to have a nice mix of short stories, vignettes and serials up on a fairly regular basis. What do you guys think? How much writing is too much writing? Would you guys be willing to read, say, at least seven bits of fiction a month or so?

This always happens when I get a good head of steam for writing. Something comes in and I just completely drop the ball. Or I lose the joie de vivre that was causing the writing jag in the first place and I go for some time before I'm able to get up the nerve again.

This week it was work. Oh my goodness, work. I don't want to go too far into it, but suffice it to say I'm in a position that tends to get a bit more stressful during the holidays and I *hope* that the rest of the year isn't anything like this past week. I will straight up die. Or murder someone.

But I won't, hopefully, stop writing. I'm busting my butt to get the first draft of something completely different out of the door as soon as possible, and after that I'll work on part two of the poker game. Unfortunately that means it won't be ready to show until later this week or as late as this weekend. My apologies, but I don't want to lose momentum on this and I'll try to catch up to it as soon as possible.

There are rough drafts of two other short stories marinating currently, and I had hoped I would have given them another pass by now. Once I'm caught up those stories will be edited and sent out as well, so there's more than just pokery goodness to, um, look forward to. If you're looking forward to that sort of thing.

I hope you guys had a nice Halloween weekend and have an even better Halloween/Samhain. What are people dressing up as? I think I'll be going as a pregnant bearded lady with an affinity for sweaters. It's the easiest costume for me. ;)

Hey guys, just so you know...the first part of Hold 'Em is up and ready for viewing. Not only that, but time is running out to vote on the direction you would like the next part of the story to take!

Feel free to read and then vote on the two poll questions below. Voting will be closed tonight, and I'll start writing part two tomorrow. If you have a dog in this fight, now's the time to say so. :)

I keep juggling a lot of different projects in my head. I had an idea for writing a series of short stories set in a fictional furry wrestling league (I might still do that, though my insatiable love for all things growy might lead to weird things there and horribly disparate matches between regular-sized folks and walking, furred buildings), an idea for two or three different short story serials that would run like 'seasons' of a TV show, all kinds of things. I've never pulled the trigger on them mostly because I've felt like I wouldn't really be able to do those ideas justice -- either the story wouldn't hold up for an extended telling or I'd fuck up with scheduling. (I really *hate* it when a comic or something else has an unreliable release schedule, but that's a rant for another time.)

There comes a time, though, where you just have to say "Screw it" and actually do something. There's this little axiom that's stuck with me ever since I heard it -- those who avoid failure avoid success. So yeah, this is going to be an experiment and it might stumble right out of the gate or it might be one of those things that launches me into more and more ambitious attempts at storytelling. The only way to know is to try.

Anyway, I *love* the idea of a game where you transform, or change size, or get into some kind of other magical shenanigans. It's a weird little genre of Net fiction I can never get enough of. Most of the examples I've seen, though, either feature straight couples, or all-females, or all-herms...none of which appeal to me naturally. It's a testament to the talent of the writers (or artists) and the strength of the concepts that I follow them anyway. The pull is just that strong.

It's time, though, for gay people to have an example of this to call our own. :) I'm not saying my entry into the ring is going to be awesome, but it does fill a niche I think is missing in this already extremely-narrow field of fiction. So, I'd like to start a bit of interactive fiction centered around a magical, mysterious poker game.

At the end of each chapter, there'll be a number of things for you guys to vote on to determine the direction of the next story. Asking for fan participation in writing the next part of the story is a guaranteed way to get feedback, I can't lose. :D You get to decide who the big winner or loser for the next part might be, what sort of action a character might take, who busts out and when, and just maybe who takes the game and ends up a colossus of the felt table.

The first part will pop up here on FA this evening, and the poll question will remain open for voting through the weekend. I'll tally up the votes and start writing the next part on Monday.

Any feedback and constructive criticism is certainly welcomed, too. I have to admit I'm extremely nervous about this endeavor, but really excited too! I hope you guys have fun with the experiment. :)

It's been a while since I've written a journal, but not too long. I haven't been doing anything insanely interesting like skydiving or going through military training, but the life has been pretty good regardless. My poor old jackalope heart can only take so much excitement. :D

Work has been fairly busy for me; mostly because I needed to provide documentation for what I do before heading out on vacation. Where did I go? Why, up to the wilds of Seattle for Rainfurrest!

The convention itself was really cool -- it's been a while since I've gone to a fur meet that wasn't Further Confusion, so Rainfurrest seemed really small and laidback by comparison. It's a writer-centric con, which I can totally get behind; the guest of honor was none other than the guy who got me into furrydom in the first place, Alan Dean Foster! He was even on writer's panels and had a reading of his non-published work! I got Spellsinger signed. *swoon*

That being said, I came back from the con more driven to write than ever. I know I haven't been very good about putting up stuff, but hopefully that will change soon. :)

Thanks everyone for being so patient and anticipatory. Hopefully what I've got will be somewhat worth the wait. ;)