I've been writing a lot but I haven't been releasing as much as I'd want to. I mean, I have Sterlings, which if I ever finished fiddling I'd be able to post and at the rate of one every two weeks I'd have an entire year's worth of material. And I've been having fun writing in my own private universes, but still...
It's not enough to just show people having sex. I've been looking at the shards of stories that I have lying around and decided that the ones that lack verve for me lack theme and adventure. They're not boldly going anywhere I haven't gone before. In many cases, I look at the story and can't decide "What am I trying to say with this story?" I don't have themes for them and that's the weak point. There's no moral to the story.
The recent observation someone made about my "melancholy phase" has struck a chord. My characters have hit a wall in their existences, living with a universe that's widing down and nothing more to their lives than what they've got before their eyes. The promise of something "more" is a very powerful incentive for human beings. Even if there's no real evidence for whatever that "more" is, it's still powerful.
The best-selling books that never appear on the NYT Bestseller lists are the Left Behind series. I mean, if it weren't for the NYT's lefty biases those books would never leave the top ten: more volumes in the LB series have sold than all of Harry Potter! That's a hell of an audience for any author to reach. And unlike erotica fans, these people are already primed to make donations.
This morning I started out on a new arc in the Journal Entries, one in which Shardik and Aaden decide that they've both found Jesus and although they're good friends, they can't do those abominable acts anymore. An episode when Ken and P'nyssa argue about whether or not their relationship consists of bestiality, and finally a big finale thirty episodes or so down the line when the Rapture comes along and only the AIs notice because large chunks of shared substrate where "The weird AIs" used to hang out are suddenly left vacant and hollow.