These last few weeks have NOT been a good time for this site, have they? For what felt like a while, I kept clicking on links to pages associated with this site, only to be met with a blackwall. Apparently the site was having some issues. At first I was worried that the site might end up going down, and I'd lose all the TG stories I've published on here, but that turned out not to be the case. (Although, right now I'm trying to click on the "Home" tab, and it keeps logging me out. So maybe there are still some bugs left?)

Regardless, I'm glad the site is up and running again. Although, it does bring me to some questions I've had on my mind ever since I finished my most recent story.

That story, of course, was The Most Extreme Punishment. Like most of the other serials I've written, it was well-received. At this time, each chapter has at least six hundred reads, with Chapter One being just one read away from 2500 by itself. Dang. And the comments that I got indicated that a good deal of the readers found themselves invested in the story.

Even comparing to my other stories, The Most Extreme Punishment seemed to do pretty well. I did some math for the read averages of every one of my serials, and here's what I got:

New Home: 2508
Olivia And Saige Vs. Miss Johnson (including the Alternate Ending): 931
Christian's Gender Problem: 2466
Lanie's Journey (including the Full Version): 825
The Witch Hunt: 889
Swarms And Sisterhood: 406
Rachel's Beginnings: 1044
The Most Extreme Punishment: 1025

As you can see, The Most Extreme Punishment ranks higher than a lot of my other serials-even my personal favorite, Lanie's Journey (sob). Rachel's Beginnings has it beaten out, which is a shame, because I personally wasn't 100% satisfied with how that story turned out. New Home, my first serial, reigns supreme, but then again, that one's been on this site the longest, and as such it's had more time to accumulate reads. And, of course, since Swarms And Sisterhood didn't do very well, it was a pretty easy for...well, any story, really, to clear.

So what I'm wondering is...what could I possibly do next? Almost all of my serials have been successful, and even the one-off stories I've posted seem to get a healthy number of reads too. To the point that I was made a "featured author" within months of starting my account. It seems logical to keep making more of what people like. But the problem is, I don't really have a lot of ideas at the moment. The kinds of stories I prefer writing are the serials, because they feel like longer, bigger adventures. But I can't do that without a good enough idea that I can stretch out into a full story. And, again, I don't have very many ideas for TG-themed stories that I haven't already done.

A couple comments on the last chapter of TMEP indicated that the readers would like to see some kind of follow-up, since they felt there was "potential for Genesis' story to continue." While I'm happy that people like reading about my characters that, honestly, I like a lot too, I'm not sure what more I could do with Genesis Rookwood. The premise of TMEP was that Gene was a selfish womanizer who didn't get along with his stepsister, and had to be turned into a girl to resolve those issues. Which, ultimately, was what happened. I never had a plan for any continuation after that, so...what can I do? Maybe it could turn out Mirna didn't die after all, and she was just messing with Genesis? Well, if that made Genesis angry and start demanding Mirna to change her back, it would kind of undo her character development. Unless Genesis would decide she didn't want to be Gene anymore and forgive Mirna? Except that's kind of how the story ended as it was-with Genesis realizing that her old life didn't mean that much to her anymore.

The only other ways I can think of to expand that story are to write some kind of spinoff, or do a crossover with my other stories. But, from what I've seen, those ideas probably wouldn't work either. For starters, I already tried writing a spinoff with Rachel's Beginnings. I'd really enjoyed writing the character of Rachel Miller in Lanie's Journey, so on paper, giving her an origin story seemed like a good idea. But by the time I'd finished writing Rachel's Beginnings, I felt like maybe I hadn't put out as good of a product as I thought. Sure, the story was serviceable, but not fantastic.

And as for the whole crossover idea, I'm not sure what more I could do with that. Maybe Genesis could decide to drive down to meet some of the other TG-ified people out there, like Olivia Walker and Lanie Evans and Saige Johnson and Zack Fletcher, and then they could work together to bring down some new witch. But that's already what Swarms And Sisterhood was-and, again, that story simply didn't spark much fervor. By asking my readers to familiarize themselves with five other stories, I basically doomed my serial from the start. And even taking that out of it, looking back, Swarms And Sisterhood didn't offer much that Olivia And Saige Vs. Miss Johnson or Lanie's Journey didn't already provide. Just more rescuing friends and defeating misandrist witches.

Then again...I did kind of have some character development. There was Olivia's arc with having Christina break up with her, and then losing her best friend and surrogate sister Bailey. And the budding romance between Miles and Rachel. So maybe that story wasn't such a bust.

I know that's a lot, but I'm just not sure what I could do. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to write more about Genesis and Lanie and Zack and Olivia and all of their friends. And if it's what you guys want, then I'd definitely like to give it to you. But I just don't know where I could go at this point.

But if you have any ideas or advice, then you can share them with me. I'm open to suggestions.