Jay Friday
patreon
April 2025 - What Should I Write Next?
🕑 Added 2025-04-16 13:00:25 +0000 UTCSo, this month has been a little different than I expected.
First, just want to thank the folks who -- when I moved everything behind the paywall -- opted to just subscribe and start paying. I appreciate it. (I appreciate the folks who were paying already, too!)
Second, the writing buffer I've built up has disappeared a little bit thanks to needing to edit a handful of other posts in addition to Referrals. Hoping we're on the other side of interacting with their content moderation system for a little while!
As a result, the second half of April is gonna be a bit of a writing crunch. Fortunately, I think I've got the work schedule to allow for it.
So far this month, I've released:
Referrals, a stand-alone story (and one of last month's reader votes for what I should write next)
The Masseuse [Remastered], Chapters 1-3 (these are some of the very first fiction pieces I ever wrote -- if you've been following me since the early days on reddit, you'll recognize them, but if you're from Literotica, you may not have seen them!)
The Thaumaturge, Chapter 10 (and its accompanying poll, which you should vote in!)
My plan for the rest of the month:
The Masseuse [Remastered], Chapters 4-7
Dungeon Mistress: Session 4
A Hospital Stay, Part 6 (the other reader vote-winner; it was a tie)
I'm hard at work on Dungeon Mistress, but not quite as far along as I'd like, so we'll see if I can get caught back up. This may mean Dungeon Mistress gets delayed a few days, which would probably also push back Hospital Stay. My apologies -- the Dungeon Mistress stories take longer to write than most of my other releases.
Regardless, though, as is the way, you all will help me decide what to write next month!
My plans so far are:
Dungeon Mistress: Session 5 (likely the last chapter of this particular arc, although this has been so fun to write that it is hard to imagine not revisiting these characters sometime)
At least one chapter of The Thaumaturge (probably two, but let's not get ahead of ourselves, y'know?)
That leaves two more releases. For one of those slots, I may post one of the sponsored stories I'm working on this month, and use that week to help build up more of a backlog; we're flying pretty close to the sun here in terms of maintaining my usual release cadence if I get sick or life gets in the way.
But that still leaves one slot. So what else should I write? There are a bunch of new paid subscribers as a result of having to put everything behind the paywall (thank you!) so I'm reposting some past choices to see what piques interest again. Most of them are self-explanatory, but I've continued to mull-over the Speedrunner series idea I mentioned last month; there's an updated blurb below; it's included in the poll.
Thanks again for supporting me.
JF
---
Speedrunner [LitRPG, female protagonist, games, progression, modern-ish sci-fi]
When Chloe hears about the open call for applications to star in the world's first AI-run, VR reality entertainment competition, it sounds right up her alley. Cutting edge VR technology, AI-created system and rules of competition, with human producers overseeing it....what's not to love?
Most importantly: it's a game, and chat wants her to play in it. So Chloe applied. She's always been good at games. It's what fueled her rise to popularity as a streamer. She's known for speedrunning video games by finding unintended uses of mechanics, winning power combinations, flashy glitches, and clever exploits.
But the show attracts a ton of applicants, and she's admittedly surprised when she gets picked to compete. She's even more surprised -- as are the producers of the show -- when the AI creates a game world that turns out to be based on accruing power through sex. It's not what she expected, but it's no surprise to anyone that she immediately starts figuring out how to finish the game as fast as she can.
And that means figuring out how to finish NPCs -- and other players -- as fast as she can.
Comments
Bob
Yeah, I hear this and it mirrors my own thinking. I like having multiple things going, but this is definitely have too many balls in the air at the moment. My plan is to finish Dungeon Mistress and then start working on completing The Therapist and A Hospital Stay, which are both near the end as well; if folks don't vote for them, I'll do them as some of my other weekly releases. Having those series 'done' gives me things to eventually post publicly anyway to draw in new readers, and it'll do a lot to clear the decks for new things, too. The Thaumaturge is intended to be more of an ongoing, longer-term project, but there'll be ends of arcs where I could take a break from it too. That said, I think stand-alone stories have a place too (to help draw in new readers and convince them that the series are worth reading). In the end, the important thing is that this poll only represents like ~10-25% of my total writing output in a given month, and I'm happy to let the folks who are actually supporting me help determine some of what I write. :)
J
Personally my preferences are series over standalones and likewise updates to series I'm already invested in over new ones. I imagine that's also what makes most financial sense as that's what made some web serials into infinite money hacks. I'd suggest completing some stories/arcs first before making room for new stuff. Too many ongoing projects causes problems all around.
