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August 2025 Update
🕑 Added 2025-08-02 04:00:48 +0000 UTCHello, folks!
There's a few things for me to go over this month, so bear with me, but first things first...
Milestones
With everything that's been going on since March-ish for me with my family, I think there are two big things that I want to make sure I'm not forgetting to do. The first is to continue thanking you all for your support of me, my writing, and the stories. The fact that I get to do this as my full-time job is so God damn humbling sometimes. I don't think I've ever talked about it here before, but a little insight into Me - I have a university degree in Political Science from a small liberal arts college. Right school at the right time for me, mostly, but the wrong school for the program and the wrong program for me. I have some amazing friends from my time there that I can still count on. But during that final year, especially in the last months (and while my sister was dealing with her FIRST major bout of mental health issues) I was reaching burnout.
I knew I didn't give a flying fuck about a degree in Political Science, especially one from the college I'd gone to because it wasn't going to lead anywhere. What I wanted to be doing was making a living writing. I graduated by the skin of my teeth, quite possibly with some gifts from a professor or two overlooking a missed assignment. That burned out kid coming out of college WANTED and DREAMED about writing for a living.
It took a decade for it to happen, and I have the perspective now to say it only took a decade to happen. Fucking amazing, and something I am SO thankful to you all for helping make a reality.
Why am I waxing poetic about this? Because it's August, which means I'm marking the end of my THIRD YEAR as a full-time Author.
Sure, I'm writing smutty romance and erotica, but it's FUN. It's ENTERTAINING. I'm telling stories and loving every moment that I get to work on them. I don't want to write the next great Canadian/American/Literary novel anyway - I never particularly liked reading those.
That's the first Milestone I wanted to make sure I celebrated. There have also been a few others that slipped by lately that I thought I could call out:
Broke 200 published chapters/stories over on Literotica.
Broke 10,700 followers on Literotica, putting me at #21 Most Followed over there (and closing on 20+19!).
Hit 22nd largest 'Patreon Adult Writing' creator (which is not a very well curated list, so I'm pretty sure there are some people ahead of me who shouldn't be on it)
AMA earned me a review that placed me on someone's "one-star-worst-on-Lit" list, which made me burst out laughing (don't worry, the reviewer is a known weirdo)
That last one might be my favourite.
Considering I didn't enter any competitions in the last year, I'd say having 4 milestones is pretty solid!
What's Coming Up
I'm still in catch-up mode after last month, and I didn't get quite as much done as I wanted to as I had to slow down again after my writing retreat, but progress is happening. FoF 43 Alpha just dropped as a double-sized release, so here is the order I'm probably going to be tackling things in coming up:
1 more FoF Release (Alpha/Beta)
Le Francais, 20k
QTNW, 3 Chapters
AMA, 50k
Red Flags Go Faster (Alphas), 15k
Unexpected Affections, 10k
Dirty 20s, 5k
Le Francais, 10k
There will also be some Sponsored chapters to add to that list as I get those submitted for this month, too.
As a note for folks, especially the majority of you who aren't Alpha readers and don't know much about it (and please, do NOT feel like I'm pressuring you to be, this is just an FYI) - Red Flags Go Faster is the story I'm writing right now that is the most likely to be a 'sellable book' if I go somewhere and meet with agents or editors, both based on structure and size of the story, as well as being a neatly packaged concept. I've asked the Sponsors to, if they are wavering on what to choose, lean in that direction so that I can get it closer to completion. That might mean that a few of the other Sponsored stories get a little less love in the next few months as I push to have a finished manuscript I can talk about with 'professional folks' at the end of the year and heading into next year.
Let's be real, the only way AMA, OFG or any of the other gigantic stories get ebooks or hard copies is by me self-publishing them. No publisher is gonna take on THOSE behemoths just based on the size of them, but having something they CAN look at is good business, and I also really like how that story is going.
What Even Is Life?
Minor updates not related to writing:
My sister is doing a little better. Not great or good, but little gains are all I can realistically hope for. Supporting her emotionally is still draining, but I'm getting better at being able to jump in and out of it without carrying as much mental baggage.
My hobby time has been going into building and painting Warhammer minis, which is a hobby I've cycled in and out of for the last two decades. Getting to play every couple of weeks with a friend has been really great for keeping my spirits up, and taking breaks from writing or life stuff to slap some paint around or assemble some minis has helped with being more efficient when I am doing other stuff.
I'll be heading to Toronto FanExpo again this year. Who knows, maybe I'll meet someone cool. Or find my hot cosplaying goth girlfriend? Something like that. Every time I go to something like it, I wonder what it would be like to have enough books/other products in hard copy to make it worth trying to rent a table and actually sell stuff.
I think I've mentioned it before, but not for a while. I'm a big Conan the Barbarian fan - I keep up with the comics and am slowly collecting the old stuff. Well, I just finished reading the latest book, and... it was awful. Just fucking awful. And the worst part is that it was marketed as being an important part of the current ongoing comics run, so I waited to read my comics to read the book, and it had almost nothing to do with the comics at all. A pointless prologue and one little, insignificant detail in the book connected to the comics. I'm Big Mad that I wasted my time reading it, when I would have put it down after the first couple of chapters otherwise.
Wrap It Up, Break.
Alright, I'm now finding myself searching the corners of my mind for more things to write about, which means I've rambled for more than long enough.
Thank you all again for your continued support. Three years of building this community has been an amazing period of change in my life, and I can only promise that the stories will keep coming for as long as I can string coherent sentences together.
Cheers, and I hope you all have an amazing August,
~Break.
Comments
Stijn Willems
Just started following you, read AMA, DM, The afterparty and unexpected. Love them all. Looking forward to more!
Mackitraz
I'm sure you're aware of his work, but Amazon did publish Tefler's John Blake series in installments (4 so far?) and that's longer than AMA or OFG. So there might be some avenue. Although some of the reviewers are pretty pissed when they found out nearly the entire story is on Lit for free. Just throwing out the suggestion if it helps bring in new readers and income streams.
spinracing
Love your work. Being "middle aged" and having enjoyed things from the hobbit in 4th grade as my first book.. on through all the big authors of the 70s and 80s, into the 90s. Being in IT, my whole life, (first pc built in 1980) i found "smut" stories and books on newsgroups. I have read a ton of stuff on lit, and stories etc. Reading your stuff and other good authors has been wonderful. When appropeiate there IS sex. A good story, well written, characters you are invested in, and when they DO have sex.... they DO. And props for writing it properly, not like so much of the poorly written stuff. Also RE your conan dilemma. I went back to read some piers anthony, and anne mccaffery, etc.. and they were not as good.. 30 or so years later. Sadly. Some are good. But yeah. Many are poorly written. Must have been published in omni and got a book deal or something. Thanks for the good work.
