Since my previous blog post about story summaries and blurbs, and after all the helpful advice, my "process" has had a new addition. All my Toni With An i stories now have a blurb on them, so does Marking Your Card, and Allison Zero has been getting a blurb right from the start.

I don't know how it's working out, but I feel it's beneficial, and it's something I want to continue. I don't think comparing kudos/readers/comments across stories is very helpful as blurbs only play a small part, but I would hope readers are finding them helpful. I certainly feel justified in doing them (based on nothing but gut feeling and what people previously asked for in the older blog.)

I got a new story up.

Sorry, its not my fluffiest entry. In fact, its kind of dark.

Here are my thumbnail sketches of the last stories to come in. Nothing random this time; these are the 15 stories I hadn't already reviewed!

Marriage Counseling

and some weather!

First: I have been guilty of that which I complain about and now see the error of my ways.

When entering your author name on a story it is easier to navigate if you have carried through with some consistency. I understand that there are several Authors that use more than one name. I have three though primarily use "Gwen Brown".

I’ve been traveling this week to deal with some family issues, so I’ve been kind of quiet as the contest goes into the final stretch. I have been keeping on top of stories coming in, though. Here’s my latest set of reviews. Great reading!!!

The Promise

To dispel my own irritation, here are some important definitions:

Space is anywhere outside the Earth's atmosphere.

Deep Space is outside this Solar System.

Galaxy is a generally spiral shaped collection of stars and other matter that is thought to orbit around a Black Hole. The number of stars in our Galaxy is thought to be in the billions. At light speed, Scientists say that it would take 200,000 years to cross it.

The Universe has unnumbered Galaxies in it. Our own Galaxy is thought to be in a group of Galaxies that occupy the Lanea kea group.

Hi all, I was thinking about a book/short story I read years ago and I wondered if anyone here could remember the author or book name.

The story is set in the future and it’s about cars that can drive themselves, people who look after them have years of trouble free motoring but the people who don’t have nothing but trouble, the story comes to a point where a badly treated vehicle goes all “Christine” on the owner.

I believe it was called ‘Automatics’, does this ring any bells for anyone?

Hoping you can help
Sammi

For all of you who are wondering what's happening now, and want to know what's going on, my In-Laws have filed again, after being denied an emergent hearing for custody. This time the judge is having us all go into pre-trial mediation to see if we can solve this outside of court.

This has nothing to do with the criminal case but is still nerve-wracking, I thought you would all want to keep updated (we are still representing ourselves pro-se, because we have yet to find a lawyer that will help us for less than a $3500 retainer for Family Court).

-Piper

I plan to release the 10th and final chapter for "You're Only Human". I never wanted to have it be a "love connection" between an AI and the human narrator but I moved the needle into that direction and found it shoved back the other way by the AI. So, the story will end on a not so happy ending in "virtual love-land" but more of a way to have the narrator not confide so much with a program but with others in the flesh.

...Not Suicidal...
Just embarrassed???

Not feeling too well just now so got in a tub of hot water to soak away the joint pain. With all the ruckus over illegal drugs, I'm not about to try to find something illegal. I tried a light dose Tylenol (Paracetamol) but it did nothing. The hot water just made things worse, so I got out. I am too shy to go to the ED on the week end, and I have an appointment with my Doctor on Wednesday. I'd planned to use a Taxi Wednesday if the Bus seems too much.

... Simple math on the number of contest entries (115 is the most recent number I've seen), times the minimum entry length, says we have dump-er-inflict-er-deluge -er- "sent" our Judges well over 277,500, to perhaps around a half million words!

Plus comments. And our responses. And Contest reminders and 'house-keeping' ...

To our Judges and all others involved, may I offer my condolences on y/our success!

With only a few more days before the deadline for the New Year's Resolution story contest, I want to give a huge shout out and THANK YOU to our beloved organizers: Jill, Emma, and Joanne. You all are amazing and really have outdone yourselves with this effort, huzzah! And additional thanks to all those helped fund it!

Right now, "Resolution Evaluation" has 63 kudos, and "Night Shift" has 58 "kudos. I'm curious if "Night Shift" can catch up, so I'm kind of competing with myself on the subject.

Of course, "Resolution Evaluation" has 28 comments (half of which are my replies), while "Night Shift" only has 10, so its not likely "Night Shift" can catch up in that area before the contest ends, but it looks like the kudo count will end up being close.

Any one heard from WolfJess7 it's been awhile from the last time she posted anything

Up in the middle of the night and wandering around my apartment, I discovered a dead tree book called "Nine Princes In Amber", Book 1 of several. The author, Roger Zelazkny, is not a TG author.

I am not more than 1/4 of the way into the work, and must say that the odd seeming 1970's language and break from TG drabble is most refreshing. While not a terribly prolific author, his story seems good enough.

These days, I seem to survive on a series of naps of 1 to 2 hours, and have been told not to worry by my Doctor. Lots of time to cast about in the middle of the night.

I recently responded to a comment by another member here. The original comment was posted regarding Amazon making a change which resulted in the comment’s author losing purchased reading material on kindle. However, my comment was regarding another comment made in response to that comment.

Amazon just changed my entire Kindle library from purchased to borrowed.
No one there can tell me why.

charlie.

I managed to make another entry for the New Year's contest!

Please comment !

https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/101379/night-shift

but i'm here now!

First up: Thanks again for helping me find that story; I really do appreciate it!

I've been increasingly suffering the effects of what I had feared is ALS. Now the self diagnosis seems to be more appropriately 'Ataxia', which is not a disease but merely is the description of a group of symptoms from injuries suffered in a full life of many falls that often included head injuries. As usual Doctors have shown to be almost useless and secretive.

Yeah, another one of those requests. Trying to find a story I thought I bookmarked it, but no idea where I put the bookmark.
It was a Christmas story, I believe, where the young protagonist takes all his Christmas money ($50?) and convinces his mom to let him get something by himself. He goes to a dress store where he saw a blue dress in the window he just fell in love with and had to have. He gets it and the line the little girl outside the store crying to her mom still stands out. "It's gone! The dress is gone!" (Pretty sure it was something like that). Any ideas?

This contest has inspired one hundred and three stories and six new authors.

Cookie's Resolve

Keep rollin', rollin', rollin'
Though the streams are swollen
Keep them dawwgies rollin', Rawhide

I've got a story, and I need someone willing to give it a once over and tell me what it needs.

any volunteers ?

Is anyone else having problems with Patreon? I have been trying to update my credit card info for two days as my bank issued me a new card due to a fraudulent charge on my card.

When I attempt to change the card, it will not allow me to. It will not even allow me to add a card. For two days it has been saying “Unable to add card at this time. Please try again later.”

In just a few days, it is going to try to charge my old card and it will not go through. Yet it will not allow me to update or add a new card.

The children who brutally murdered a transgender girl have been named, in a positive article about her death, Zoe Williams comments that transphobia seems to be a component of why Brianna was murdered and how it is whipped up by the right-wing press and politicians, I think it's worth a read and I agree we should remember the name of the victim not the perpetrators, who will locked up for years.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/02/briann...

History has stories of women warriors. Separating truth from fiction doesn't matter when one is writing fiction. In real life the truth is often lost due to men writing the history and not wanting to give proper dues to the women who made their own history. Shield-Maidens, Amazons, and Mary a disciple of Christ, all denied by most historians.

A short history of one Viking Shield Maiden recently reviled
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birka_grave_Bj_581

Out for a walk in a rare break in the rain, I was approached by a male that was approximately my age or older perhaps. We had a short conversation about the route of the new walking path we were on, him wanting to know if it went downtown. As it turned out, I knew it did and shared the information. He then departed, him continuing along the way that he had previously been going.

As I walked along, I began to muse about what it would have been like had he been attracted to me? I was not attracted to him but did not feel fearful either.

Another contest story just went up! Blue Silk is now available.

This entry is quite a departure from my usual writing fare, much to my continual surprise. No angels, no fae, no magic, say what?!? How'd that happen! Truly shocking.

But I hope folks enjoy the story all the same! :)

- Erisian <3

Good morning! It’s February – do you know where your Contest Story is? C’mon, authors! Just two weeks left!

Here are my third set of comments on the stories that have been submitted to date, selected with the assistance of a handy random number generator:

of 2024!

So the news is saying 4 current and one former NHL player have been charged in relation to an alleged sexual assault that happened 2018.

What makes this interesting is that Hockey Canada, who was responsible for the players at the time seemed more interested in making the problem go away, giving the accuser a lot of money in a lawsuit settlement.

Wow! We have received eighty-four entries for our contest.

Thank you.

We appreciate the effort it takes to produce a story for a contest. We also appreciate that all of you recognize that judging a contest like this is highly subjective and certainly not a science. All Emma and I can do is give this our best efforts, which I'm confident we're doing.

For most of the participants, the only compensation they will receive will be your kudos, comments, and reads. The following list might help you find a few more stories to read. The titles are a link.

That's right, folks!

Do you wanna see what happened with my original contest story idea? The one that ballooned out to over 12k words and I didn't have the heart to chop down? Well, do I have good news for you!

I just finished typing up and publishing the seventh chapter in my new series titled The Most Extreme Punishment-which, if you haven't already started reading, I suggest you check out. ;) But I was surprised to see that this chapter has over 2200 words. Which is longer than any of the other chapters I've written thus far. It's kind of funny, since the first few chapters had progressively fewer words, but now I've got the longest chapter yet. Wow!

no, let me guess, Monday?

January is winding down, and we are now four weeks into our 2024 writing contest! If you’ve missed it — well, I don’t know how you’ve managed, but if you have — the rules are here. There are still over two weeks left to join the fun, so get those stories posted. :)

New story up. sorry, its not a New Year's story, but I hope people like and comment anyway.

https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/101183/lifes-little-i...

Hey everyone,

It's been a journey of over thirteen years with BCTS, a journey filled with laughter, tears, and moments that left me utterly captivated. When I first stumbled upon this place, I was here for the erotica, but soon, I found myself falling deeply in love with the community and the stories it held.

I've been a bit of a lurker, gobbling up stories from many authors, sometimes sneaking in a DM or two. Watching the comings and goings of some fantastic writers, I've been the silent spectator in the corner, hand metaphorically (and sometimes literally) in my pants.

Resolution Revelations

Aylesea has written an above-average story that brings us inside the life of a depressed young lady. This story is a good example of what humor can add to any story.

View From a Bridge

Heya folks!

Just a head's up that the site might be seeing some downtime later this evening (24th January 2024.) There are going to be some updates coming through, and while they're going to be processed as quickly as possible, they might result in the site being unavailable for a while.

If I get any more information on specifically when to expect such outages I'll try to let folks know here.

Thanks for your patience!

Melanie E.

I was just looking over "Melanie Brown's, Captive". For me, the story just yearns for another chapter or perhaps a post script or something. Here "Scotti" is at least at the end of the second year and declared an Art Major in chapter 1. Then in chapter 3 Scotti is sitting in the bathroom putting makeup on. For me, it is not surprising that after 3 years of brain washing, she would embrace being a woman. I assume that she was subjected to medically harsh doses of Estrogen, plus forced SRS.

I was thinking this morning (definitely cause for concern) and was wondering if I had anything in my arsenal that could maybe be converted to a contest entry.

Originally, I was thinking about my unposted things, but then, on review of the rules, I didn't see any prohibition on previously posted works. Turning my attention to those works, I discovered that I do in fact have a wonderful story for the contest!

Erasing all trans was begun close to ninety years earlier by Hitler and the Nazi regime. Dare I say it, this is exactly the same path Hitler started. Most of the history was destroyed but it's still there for those who dare look.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-forgotten-his...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...

Today was a great day for writing, woot! So I thought I'd ramble about it while still grinning happily.

First let me restate that this is in no way an endorsement of any of the stories submitted for the 2024 New Year’s Contest. That ain’t my job.