v0.19 is up!

Check the Play the Game tab above to play now!

So this is my first time pushing to make a new version in just two months! It feels strange, but I think I like it. It'll probably be better for the game in the long run going a little faster. This was all brought about by the folks on the Patreon, so big thanks to them! Even if Patreon did just change how it displays funds so it looks like I didn't hit my goal xP

This time around, I decided to push for more variety in the new content rather than just slamming out tons of Stone Door content. There's still one full decision branch for the Stone Door that's been added, with all its choices available, but along with that, I've opened the Wooden Door to continuous play! There isn't a whole lot in there just yet, but the foundation is set for more content to come!

Past that, I've added achievements for several new endings, and I've updated the achievement notification system to hopefully make it a little easier to see a notice for your achievements even if you have to load another file to get to the screen where they pop up.

There are two new pieces of art, one being a whole new spread of little guys for illustrating the character creation process. The other is pretty easy to find if you go down the black collar path.

A couple scenes in the game have had a bunch of variants added to make them a richer, more personally rewarding read. Hopefully you won't really notice any difference, they'll just feel a little more special to you each time you read them! Plus, for the supporter version, vagina/nodick support has been added to all of Bend Him Over. We're getting pretty close to having enough content for V/ND to go public!

Lastly, for higher-level supporters on the Patreon, a bunch of new reward content has been added! There is now a Deluxe version of MVOL with double the dimensions of the original game so you can enjoy it on a big screen with full-resolution art and less stretching! And for the very top tier, supporters can give me a name of their choice, and I'll code it directly into the game to give them a personal copy in which Lith knows their name. There are lots of other rewards on the Patreon as well, we've unlocked all sorts of stuff!

When I knew I was going to be pushing to get the game out in just two months, when I'd already felt like I was pushing myself to make it happen in three, I was worried there wouldn't be enough content. But I think handling it like this, with more variety of additions, helps a lot. It lets me work on different things when I'm in different moods, and it helps make sure that everyone has something to enjoy, and for those that enjoy everything, there's lots of stuff to do.

I should note that this update may be the saddest one we've had so far. There will be happier days (and endings) to come, but consider playing the new content in moderation. One area in particular, through the wooden door, I very much consider optional content. If this doesn't sound like something you'd enjoy exploring, I fully encourage you to skip it. My Very Own Lith can and will make you uncomfortable at times, but this is one time that I won't blame anyone for passing it by.

With all that said, it's awesome to be on v0.19. I remember back in the day, I jumped to v0.10 when there was a big milestone in what the game offered! I feel like v0.20 should do something similar, but I'm not sure what just yet. I guess you guys will have to wait to find out! Until then, I hope you enjoy the new update! Thanks for reading, everyone!

Finally, Contained.

I've been sitting on this story a while trying to get the planets to align, but finally, it's up! Contained Part 1, my first exclusive eBook, is up on Amazon Kindle and Smashwords! Nobody has had a chance to see even a rough draft of this on FA or SF, if you wanna see what's going on in this baby, you'll just have to pick it up at the retailer of your choice! That said, it wouldn't hurt to tease a little about it. First off, here's the cover art:

Art by BlackMustang13

Contained is about a woman's intense, personal experience trying to care for a man that's gone over the edge. Hypertension, hypersensitivity, excessive cum, and bondage are central features of this story. And you know me, I can't get into something like this without some cock worship sneaking in there.

Also, if you do pick this up, or any of my other eBooks: It would be a huge, huge help if you leave a review or rating! Be honest. And if you're worried about attaching your name to a smutty book, you can edit your displayed name on Amazon for reviews easily! Go to your profile here and click the "Profile page settings" button, and the first thing you'll see is the name you're displaying to the world. So you can set it to "Anonymous" or "Amazon Customer" or whatever you want and review without worry! Just a thought :3 After all, you can only buy my books once, but it doesn't hurt to help other people know there's decent reads to be found here!

And while we're talking about feedback, which I love getting, let me reiterate that the feedback forum is online! Come talk about scenes in MVOL, the impressions you got from them, and maybe even help me improve the game!

Ready to Discuss!

I got some positive feedback for setting up a place to discuss MVOL scene-by-scene, so I've gone ahead and set up a subforum for it! You can find it here, on the MVOL forum, though the age screen may send you to the main page. You can either click the link again after accepting, or just find it under "MVOL Discussion" in the subforum "Scene Discussion." I've only posted two scenes so far, as I thought it would help to try and start a little focused in, try to get a little conversation going, then add more scenes over time.

Each scene is posted with a full transcript of a sort of "default playthrough," and also comes with some commentary and explanation from me on what was intended and what I worry may have gone wrong with the scene. I hope this can serve as a little bit of a prompt to get people to share their own thoughts on the scenes-- how they felt first reading them, whether I succeeded in what I was going for or if I was right to be worried, things like that. Any discussion about the scene itself, how it's written and how it fits into the game is welcome. Just please remember that discussing how to find scenes or do things in the game goes in the Guides & Help subforum ^.^; Anyway, if you're at all interested, please come join us and share your thoughts! I've opened up with two of the big "introductory" scenes in the game: the opening moments of the game itself, and your first time entering the stone door for the blue collar.

And in other news, To Own a Wolf, Chapter One is finally complete once more on Amazon Kindle! I did run into a content block one more time-- strangely, the only part I'd returned to the description that time around was the praise from readers. Very confusing. But I'm just glad to have this behind us! Hopefully, this means I'll finally be able to post my first brand-new, eBook exclusive story next week! Stay tuned for news there!

Lastly, you may be interested to know that I've joined a friend of mine, Nich, in producing a few Let's Play's for perverted games! We're talking about doing a Let's Play of MVOL later, if that would even work for a text-based game, but we've started by playing around with a couple goofy flash games about molesting sleeping furries. Apparently Nich didn't have any friends to do furry porn games with, so he was stuck with boring skin people games. We had a lot of fun, though I kinda feel bad making fun of somebody else's game ^.^; Anyway, if you've ever been curious what I sound like spouting dirty jokes and pop culture references while sexually tormenting birds and wolves (and if so, holy cow, what?) then you're in luck! Come check it out! Just look for the ones with "sleep" in the title. Also, furries on the thumbnail will probably help tip you off.

New Business and Old Business

Hey, folks! Lots of bits and pieces of news for you today. If you're already poking around the right circles, you may have already heard the first big thing. I've actually been holding off on making this announcement for quite a while, waiting for the right time, but it looks like I'm going public just a little early.

I don't know if you ever heard of a little Japanese 3D porn game company called Illusion, but I really liked their work. I couldn't usually understand much of it (even with fan translations squeezed in) but being able to see and control 3D models as they do the naughty, directing the action and swinging around to the perfect, sometimes impossible angle for the best view, was a pornographic triumph in my book.

So when Wolvalix from the development team for The Cathouse Tale approached me to take full control of the story, characters, and writing for their game, I was more than interested. A furry, English version of those 3D porn games, complete with story and full-on gameplay? Hell yes, I said! Well, I don't think I literally said that, but it was my general attitude!

Now, I wanted to wait to reveal this until there was actually... well, something to reveal. Unfortunately, the team ran into some trouble just as I came on board-- they wanted to make a big upgrade to how the game animates characters, but it took much longer to get together than they'd hoped, and things like setting up a proper dialogue system for me to overload with rambling, eccentric characters got pushed down the priority list. So right now, there isn't really anything new from me over there to check out.

But the team is turning things around and getting ready to put out a new release (hopefully) soon, and it's going to (hopefully) have at least a little of my writing in it! And besides that, it's just a pretty cool new game that I think will be a real asset for the furry community once it's really up and running. I recently stepped into a sort of Communications Manager role over there to help take some pressure off the guys handling programming and such, so I decided it was high time I make the announcement! If things go well, you'll be able to enjoy at least a little of my work over there soon, and a whole lot of the other guys', if you haven't already! I'll keep you posted!

And I know some of you will be concerned that this will eat into my time for MVOL. The short response is: Don't be. The longer response is that, while I may have some ambitious plans for the story side of CHT, the simple fact is that their dialogue system consists of little speech bubbles. I'm gonna be using lots and lots of them, but you can't really write all that much in a format like that, and you don't want to bore the players to death reading it all, flipping through too many of them. So there's not THAT much writing for me to do, and for that matter, it will take the rest of the team much, much longer to do all the work that goes into creating scenes and content than it will take me to write up the conversations that set up the content. I don't expect this project to eat into my time in any noticeable way-- rather, I think it may make one more nice little complement to my other work. I've enjoyed having my other stories to work on when I'm not in the mood to talk about Lith, but this should make a much better bit of variety, I think. MVOL isn't exactly very dialogue intensive, in comparison!

So that's one piece of news! Next up, something good, and something bad.

You may be familiar with my eBooks. I announced on here as I edited, polished, and published the first five Parts of To Own a Wolf on Amazon. Well, I've been getting ready to publish my first brand new story on there, and there have been a few different steps to that process. First, I've expanded my reach to publish my eBooks on multiple platforms. As of today, part five of To Own a Wolf is up on Smashwords, a site which, in turn, publishes to many other eBook sites on my behalf. At least, that's the theory. I've confirmed that my work is up on Barnes & Noble, Inktera, and iTunes, though some may be slower than others to get all five Parts, and SW claims that they're also going up on Kobo, Baker & Taylor Blio, txtr, and Scribd,  but I haven't been able to confirm that. If you guys are more familiar with/subscribed to these services, I'd be interested to hear if you can find my work! Either way, if for any reason you prefer another service for procuring your eBooks, chances just got much better that you can read my work by your channel of choice!

With that said, Amazon recently gave us a reason to be glad for the alternatives. Another step in my preparing to publish a new eBook was to go back and edit all my old eBooks to update a few small things in formatting and add some new links to the back. What I did not realize is that every time you make even the smallest edit, Amazon has a specialized reviewer look over your submission to make sure the work still meets their requirements before it's published. I went through this same process for each eBook when I first submitted them. What I also did not realize is that they would reject half of my work-- which didn't just reject the edits, but permanently banned the books from being sold on their site.

To be honest, I was a little shocked. I was a little... angry. I contacted them, and received a form letter reiterating that the books did not meet their content guidelines. Their content guidelines, as far as I can find, are about as vague as humanly possible, by the way. But I've found circles that discuss these things and have felt out exactly what Amazon does and doesn't allow, and to be honest, after I found out how Amazon usually handles this stuff, I was a little surprised that my books had made it through in the first place.

Not that Amazon doesn't do erotica, or furry erotica, or things much, much worse (both in quality and in offensiveness) than my work. There are a few large issues you have to understand. One is that they don't actually read... basically any of the work that's submitted. Oh, they might run it through a spell check and maaaybe a filter or two for real red flags, but mostly they judge by the title, the cover, and the description. My original description had been very open about what's going on in the book, even going out of its way to be helpful and explicit about how sexual things are going to be, and what the reader could expect.

This set off a lot of red flags. Hell, putting "wolf" in the title was a red flag. They don't like bestiality, and if you mention animals in a story tagged as erotica, they don't like you. So throw in words like "slave" and "snake," not to mention that I literally gave tags for sexual activities when they don't like you spelling things out too much, and it's easy enough to see how this happened. They do things their own way, and you have to play by their rules to get in.

Now, they did say that I could resubmit the story if I edited it to better meet their content guidelines. So I edited the forematter of the book a little and trimmed down the description to be a deal less offensive. I wasn't ready to take "wolf" out of the title, but I hoped for the best. They rejected it. I got a little frustrated.

Third time was the charm, though. I submitted it with a two-line description, and one line was a disclaimer that none of the offensive things I thought they might be worried about were going on here. I'm happy to say that the book went through, and I'm breathing a little easier.

So, what now? I'll be publishing them, again, once a week. I have two more to go, and I'll be experimenting a little bit to see how helpful and informative I can make the descriptions without being "too informative." And when that's done, hopefully, I'll finally be publishing my new eBook, a rather longer entry that's an all-new story, never before published in any part, any draft, anywhere. It's going to be a little weird, since I probably won't get much feedback on it, but hopefully folks will like it!

And on a last note, if any of you purchased To Own a Wolf Parts 3, 4, or 5 before all this went down, could you drop me a line? I want to know how the ban panned out on your side. Can you still read the copies you've downloaded? Can you still download it again? I'm hoping they're not being too... unpleasant about it on the customer's side.

Those were the two big events I wanted to cover today. Now, two smaller notes before we wrap this up!

To follow up on the text formatting issue in MVOL: I still don't know why this is happening :/ On the other hand, I've found that it actually isn't exclusive to v0.18-- at least for me, it seems to do this for old copies as well, going way back. I couldn't find another game with justified text fields like mine to see if it was doing the same, but at this point, I think the most likely cause is that Flash itself has screwed something up with one of its recent updates. So maybe they'll fix it at some point and this will just go away, or maybe I'll have to leave it left-aligned from here on and just grin and bear it. The main alternative I can see is to try and find another way to present text-- I'll be looking into my options for that shortly, but I don't think there are very many. It's true I've been dissatisfied with the text box and the scroll bar in a few ways, so maybe I can find a way to improve the whole experience while I'm at it, if I'm lucky.

And lastly, I know I talked about setting up some kind of feedback discussion for MVOL's scenes, which still sounds awesome, but with everything else going on, it got pushed off a ways. But I'm gonna try and get started on that this coming week, so keep an eye on the blog for news on that!

Phew. I probably could have broken that up into a few smaller posts, but honestly, it's all kind of "current news!" I've covered a lot, and probably forgotten some details, so hit me up with comments or questions! And as always, if you want the very latest about how MVOL is coming on, my Twitter is rolling along, and I report every time I get more writing in, occasionally with little teasers of what's to come. Thanks for reading, folks!

Unjustified

So the last week before the release was a huge scramble trying to make the graphics happen in time, and I've mostly been catching my breath since then and dealing with some real-life stuff I had to put off, but it looks like we're paying the price for that time that I should have, ideally, spent making sure the game... well, worked.

I caught the issue with the stone door path back into the void pretty quick (you might have gotten a glitched copy if you were fast to download, try grabbing a new one if so and you haven't heard of this already) but it looks like there was another, stranger issue. I think this might partly be a glitch with Flash itself, but-- well, MVOL uses Justified text so that both the left and right sides of the body of text are flat. It looks nicer that way! But for some reason, it's going too far with it now, and partial lines are also being spread to fit the width of the screen, which is very not right.

Strangely, the issue seems to be something that can not show up at first, but "infect" every instance of the game later. Either that, or it really is a direct effect of a recent Flash update. Either way, the most direct fix I've found is to simply not justify the text. So I've put up a left-aligned version of the game on the Play the Game! tab! If you're having issues, download that, and you should be okay to play and read comfortably. I'm hoping to find a better solution soon, but I want you guys to be able to play in the meantime without the game being an ugly mess.

I've been hearing a few other issues with the new release here and there, and I'm starting to think it may be because of the new, larger image files. I'm looking into solutions; right now I'm thinking it may be an issue with players trying to run before they've loaded everything, but if I can't force it to pre-load, then I may just have to try offering folks a compressed version and see if that fixes things. For now, if you're having issues with text, grab a left-aligned version, and if it's something else, try opening the game a different way! Opening it in an internet browser usually seems to work okay, but Flash Projector and some mobile devices seem to be having trouble.

Sorry for the inconvenience, everyone! I wanted to make the game beautiful, but beauty comes with a price, it seems. Hopefully I can straighten this all out soon.

v0.18 is Live!

Pop over to the Play the Game tab to play the new version now! Also, if you've already downloaded/played the game elsewhere on the day of this post, please force-refresh the file! There was one bug that made it through to release, but the files have been re-uploaded with a fix!

It's been a wild ride making this update happen. The Patreon has funded two new pieces of art for every new version of the game, which I thought would be a snap, but problem after complication after delay turned three months into two weeks, with no art ready! I had to put aside my goals for the specific art I wanted for this version and scramble to get something else ready in time. Fortunately I found some very helpful artists willing to make this happen for me, so the new pieces are ready in time! I also took some time to overhaul how MVOL handles art, including the way it's presented and the quality and compression it applies. The file has actually doubled in size after all this (the loading screen seems much more appropriate now!) but I think you'll see a distinct rise in quality, especially if you're not playing the game at native resolution!

Past that, a bunch of new story content is jammed in there! It totaled over 15,000 words of new content, including two new endings and the first path out of the stone door and back to the void for good. We're pushing well toward the end of the stone door, but if you'd like to get a more concrete idea of exactly how far along we are toward completing this arc, you can check out this helpful post on my Patreon!

Lastly, I've been working with my new variant writer to massage some of the old scenes. We haven't changed very much so far, partly because I realized that I need to revamp my text parsing system with something a little more powerful! So you can look forward to more of that in future versions, but for now, there's just a handful of little edits for quality and variance here and there.

It's great to finally have the game out for everyone to see! I'll be getting to work soon on setting up a discussion for you all to join as I discussed in the last post, so keep an eye out for more news here! For now, I think I'm gonna go lie down...

So Let's Talk About MVOL!

Quick update: I've been flailing at the whole art issue, and it looks like I should have art ready in time for the main release! Barely! My proofers are looking over the new content right now, and I'm hoping to have it ready for an advance release this weekend. I always feel like I'm not adding enough to the game, but current wordcount for new content is over 15k! That means I'm actually writing, for MVOL alone, at about half the rate I was at my prime when I was keeping The Schedule in days past. So I think that's pretty good, actually!

Now, the big thing I wanted to talk to you guys about is: I want more feedback for MVOL. I get emails and comments and such from people that like the game and the overall impact, which is great, but I yearn for the kind of comments that I'd get on stories, where people get into the nitty-gritty of how specific scenes made them feel, what didn't make sense or fell flat, and what they didn't like about my work. In other words, constructive criticism.

Of course, it makes sense that I didn't get much of this for MVOL! It's hard to say "Dear Lithier, I liked the one scene where you talk to Lith about this and then he says this one thing, and I was playing a dragon so I think that's why he said THIS, and that was nice but I kinda wish that this and this happened." It's a pain getting so specific about the circumstances, because the content is hidden throughout the game in all these twists and turns, and very specific circumstances can open a new trove of things to read! That also means it's very easy to, when commenting on something, spoil it for others. It's hard to comment on anything happening behind the doors without spoiling the doors for new people coming to the game, for example.

So! Here's what I was thinking: What if we took the time to focus on single scenes at a time and discuss them? What if I selected scenes from the game and transcribed them to a page where folks can read it to get a reminder what it is, and I can talk some about why it exists and what went into writing it and even touch on what different outcomes can be seen in it, and then folks can comment on it with their experiences, opinions, and impressions? Maybe if we were reeeally lucky, people would even start discussing scenes, or at least ideas in them, with each other! I'd love to see the sinister truth of what impact my writing has had on people.

And this wouldn't just be to stroke my ego. I'm going through old scenes in the game, along with my new variant writer, and working on sprucing them up to make sure everything is up to my current writing standards. In most cases that just means catching a typo or two or spicing up some repetitive word choice, but if I can get feedback from you guys on what was unclear or didn't work as intended, then I can make the game a better experience! One awesome thing about having this big body of work as a game I'm releasing in versions is that it can continue to live, breathe, and grow in all aspects!

So that's the idea! You guys get examples of scenes from throughout the game complete with some developer commentary and the chance to make your opinions heard, and I get delicious feedback to help me improve the game! There are two questions that I have to ask you all, though. Would YOU be interested in taking part in this? What can I do to make it welcoming for you to take part in the discussion? And secondly, where would it be best to set it up? It actually seems to me like the forum may be the best place for it. It's a little more user-friendly for comments and discussion. The downside is that people would have to make accounts in order to comment.

What do you think? Would you join the discussion? Would you be willing to pop onto the forum to try it? I expect I'd be linking new discussions on here as they go up, maybe every week or every other week, so you wouldn't have to go hunting for them. Comment here to let me know (you don't need an account), or you can always email me at lithiers@gmail.com! Thanks, everyone!

Troubles and Preparation

Hey folks! September is almost here, and that means v0.18 is on the horizon. I've got new content written up, hopefully more on the way, I've got a variant writer getting started, and I have... well, I'm trying to get new art for the game.

In case you haven't seen, the Patreon is going nicely, and we've hit the goal to start seeing two new pieces of art for each release! I'm excited for it, but the application has gone a little rougher than expected. Commissioning art is hard! Especially, it would seem, when your needs are as unusual as mine.

I've had artists with really cute work turn me down for even slightly nsfw images, I've heard issues with contracts and work being used in a game rather than for personal consumption. I've seen artists bow out due to personal issues and up and stop producing due to lack of inspiration. I have been trying, on and off, to get art for this release since days after v0.17 came out, and... well, I'm still trying.

I have specific goals for this next release, but I'm starting to think I may have to settle for something else, just to get art done. I try to shop around and find art that is both of quality and good value for the price, but as the deadline looms, it looks like I may have to throw my budget out the window just to get something into the game in time @_@;; One way or the other, I mean to meet my goals for art and see to it that it's quality work going in!

But that's for me to worry about, and for you guys to enjoy, when all this has finally turned into delicious pixels. The next version is coming in the next few weeks, so keep your eyes peeled!

Variant Writer Deadline: This Sunday!

Hey, folks! Submissions have started slowing down, so I reckon it's time to set a deadline. I want to get as many samples from as many people as possible, but I can't wait for too long, so I'm setting the deadline for submissions to 11:59 PM, Sunday the 9th, Eastern Standard Time. If you're not sure what I'm talking about, check out my last blog post.

If anyone out there is still working on a submission, I'd encourage you to send me what you have as soon as possible. I'm always happy to look over your progress and give feedback to try and help you get a better idea of exactly what I'm looking for. I believe fervently that there is a talent for this among you, but I can't see it if you don't take the time to try and show me.

Once the deadline has passed, I will look through all the submissions I've gotten for each applicant again. Putting more work in will certainly help, but the primary attribute I'm looking for will be the quality of the variants submitted. If one of you is clearly meeting the goals outlined for a variant writer much better than the rest, I will be happy to announce the position filled. But if, as I expect is likely, there is a similar amount of potential apparent in many of you, then I will choose out the smaller handful of applicants to go on to the second stage of the process. Either way, I will be notifying everyone I've heard from by email when my decision is made.

Those that move on to the second and final stage will be given a choice between three much larger samples to work with. If you submit a piece for the second stage that I feel you put a decent amount of work into, I will be happy to send you $15 for your time and effort. This isn't indicative of the final pay scale you'd be seeing once you had the position, since I don't expect to use any of these submissions directly in the game, but rather to make sure you don't feel like you're wasting your time putting as much work as you can into making the piece you choose shine. Hopefully between these larger, more intensive pieces, I will be able to judge the best applicant for the job. I look forward to working with all of you, and I thank you very much for taking the time to work with me in the hopes of making MVOL the best game it can be. I know this can be a strenuous process, but I hope that for each of you, it has at least been informative and interesting, and given you a bit more insight into MVOL and its development.

I'm waiting eagerly for your submissions!

Open Call!

Hey, folks! I'm still trying to get a larger pool of applicants for my Variant Writer position, and it looks like it's time to open up the application to the public! So if you haven't heard about this yet, or just were shy to email me without knowing a little more about what the work would involve, read on!

The basic idea of a variant writer is to look at my existing writing for MVOL, line by line, and come up with ways that it could be changed slightly to reflect things like the avatar's species, or Lith's dominance, or the size of either character's anatomy. I consider MVOL's smooth prose one of its strengths, but compared to games like CoC, it doesn't really go out of its way to acknowledge that this is the player's own unique experience and not just a solid block of writing that's the same for everyone. It needs to be unique to the player! It needs variance! Hence, we need to write in more variants, to make the experience more rewarding for the people playing the game.

I can give you the tools to make that happen, but it's up to you to get creative with where to put these changes and how to word them so that they slip smoothly into the writing without interrupting what's going on or changing the feel of the scene. It's important that it's the same scene, just with subtle changes to reward the player and enrich the experience. It's hard work, and it's easy to get worn out trying to work with so many restrictions, but I believe some of you will be much better at it than I am.

You can get the full details of what the job involves by downloading this document. It spells out your goals as a variant writer, then goes over all the tools you have for adding variants to my work. Once you've got the basics, you can take a look at an example I made for adding several variants to a short scene. This site highlights all the differences between the before and after versions. It can be kinda hard to read the game as raw code at first, so you may want to get in the habit of selecting text as you go to keep your place.

And once you've looked at all that, you can get samples of scenes from the game in this file to take a look at and try your own hand at writing variants! It'd probably be a good idea to focus on just one to start, and add as much as you can that you think fits in well and follows the goals before sending it to me. Or, if you get to the point that you feel like you could add more but you're not sure how you're doing so far, you're welcome to send me a partial and I can give you some feedback on what you're doing well and what you should work on.

When you feel like you've got something ready for me, or even if you just have some questions about the work or the position, email me at lithiers@gmail.com ! I'm hoping to get lots of applicants to choose between, and if enough of you look especially promising, I'm thinking I'll have a second round for making the final decision, with much larger samples, and I'll pay for the work! Once I have made my final selection, we can figure out a scheme for making sure you're well compensated for your time and effort. I hope I'll see you in the running!

Looking for a Variant Writer!

The Patreon has been going well, I'm happy to say! We've hit several of our goals, opening up a new tier of rewards for patrons, as well as raising enough support that I've gone ahead and cut my hours at my day job so I can focus more on writing for the game. Maybe most significantly, however, we've hit the goal for hiring a variant writer. This should help get more content out for the game faster, and also satisfy a lot of requests I've been seeing from players.

So what is a variant writer? Sort of a combination of an editor and re-writer. My Very Own Lith has a lot of choices and variables through which you can customize your play experience, but my personal strengths as a writer are focused on crafting a single, powerful narrative experience. As such, I often don't make as thorough use of these variables as I could to custom tailor the experience to the choices each player has made. The idea is that a variant writer will take the scenes I've written up and carefully add in alternatives and references to smoothly fold in acknowledgements of things like the player's species and anatomy, Lith's anatomy, and the nature of the relationship between the two of you, into the narrative. The goal is to keep the same quality of writing, but better acknowledge players having knots or being submissive or giving Lith big knockers or what have you-- to make it feel like a more personal and rewarding experience, more often, in subtle but pleasing ways.

Obviously, this will take a careful and patient touch. I'm not going to say it will be an easy job. It will require a mix of dogged creativity, attention to detail, patience, and passion for, ideally, all the aspects of the game that we want to reflect.

I get offers now and then for help with writing for the game, but the fact is that this game is a work of exacting precision for me, and I don't think anyone else can write up full scenes that would accurately match Lith's nature, the portrayal of which is MVOL's primary goal. MVOL is all about Lith and helping you get to know him better, so only someone that knows Lith as well as I do can really write it. But this aspect, writing in variants to reward players for their choices, is something that I actually don't feel very qualified for. I've never been very passionate about species, and I get a headache trying to find places to cram in all the little details often enough to make players happy. So I earnestly believe there's somebody out there --one of you-- that can do this job better than I can. And I mean to find you.

So if you have a strong grasp of writing, a dedication to thoroughly working over a text, and a ready font of creativity to tackle problems in interesting ways, I invite you to contact me. You don't need to know how to program, so long as you can learn to format your submissions to roughly match the templates I give you.

I'm preparing an in-depth explanation of the work that needs doing and samples, but if I can keep this behind closed doors so I can avoid putting too much raw game text up where everyone can see, that would be ideal. I'm hoping to get a number of applicants to consider. I'll be making my selection by offering a small sample of writing to try your skills out on and see how you do, and if need be, I'll pay for a larger sample of your work on scenes I have to offer as examples, before making my final decision. My goal is to hire one main variant writer, but I'll be happy to consider as many people as want to apply, and even if you don't get the position, it's possible I'll come to you later if things don't work out with the winner, or if I end up wanting to get the work done faster and take on multiple variant writers. So don't be afraid to apply!

I'm not certain under what terms I'll be paying the variant writer. Maybe something like a set amount per thousand words of the original copy, or per hundred words of content added, depending on how things work out. It's a bit of an odd position, really, and we'll have to feel out some of it as we go, but I have no intention of leaving you feeling you got short shrift for your contribution to the game.

If this sounds like a position you might be interested in, email me at lithiers@gmail.com ! If I can get enough applicants straight away, I won't open the application to the public, so if you're excited to help write for MVOL, email me now! Similarly, if you have any questions about the position and what it might involve, don't be afraid to ask!

I look forward to hearing from you!

v0.17 is Live!

Check the "Play the Game" tab above to get the new version!

It's been a little crazy, but I'm feeling good about this update. Got in something of a "double" sex scene with some alternatives worked in, plenty of new story content, and capped it off with a few little treats. Plus the new Patreon is online and going well so far! I'm hoping to see it really flourish with the excitement following the new copy of the game floating around. If you've been considering joining, or just know what would interest you if you were able to pitch in, don't forget to vote in the poll for what rewards I should offer!

It's pretty difficult to refer to the new content in a way that can be consistently understood, when it comes to dividing all the branches of the storyline into pieces to be talked about. So we're looking at the last two missing paths for "chapter two" for the stone door, meaning that you can now go through the stone door a second time, no matter what. On top of that, we have the "final chapter" for the stone door, but only for one path at the moment-- one of the black collar choices. There will be more content after the stone door, but there are going to be some "endings" to be found through the stone door, depending on the choices you make.

Additionally, this is a more subtle addition, but I've decided the "first half" of the game, the content before the doors, is stable enough at this point to have a more persistent achievement for completionists. It used to be that I would add achievements for completionism for just one version at a time, to give the game a little extra play time, but since I kept changing things, they weren't really valid for long. Now, I don't expect at least the first half of the game to change too substantially for this achievement to lose validity, at least for a little while. I've added a sort of "you've found all the basic content in the first half of the game" achievement for folks to chase after once they've played the game a bit-- and to give them a better idea of just how much they might have missed. I've tested it myself, and not only is it obtainable, but with the exception of three scenes that may be considered obvious to those most familiar with the game, the achievement can be obtained completely through one save file. Perhaps I should make an achievement along the lines of that particular trick, actually, now that I think of it...

Lastly, you'll probably notice this one pretty quickly, but I added a little graphical treat to the game, and I'm pretty happy with it! I hope it will prove pleasing for all my experienced players, and an inviting welcome to the newer players.

Thanks for your patience, everyone, and I hope you enjoy the new content!

v0.17 and Patreon!

Hello, everyone! v0.17 is ready as of this moment, and next weekend it will be released to the public! If you just can't wait to play, you may be interested in my new Patreon, officially launching today! As a kickoff special, everyone that joins will get advance copies of v0.17+ right away, no matter what amount they pledge. Check it out!

Right now, the only supporter rewards are the same as I've been offering before-- a cheat-enabled copy of the game, and if you're especially generous, early access to the next version. But I'm planning to add more rewards as the monthly pledge total increases, some of which I want to choose based on feedback from the community. Please take a look, and vote in the poll for what rewards you'd be most interested in! And if you're tantalized by these possibilities, the idea of monthly mini-updates, or even an on-the-spot feed of my new writing, then come pitch in, and maybe tell a friend or two!

And yes, for those of you who may be wondering, I will still accept donations the old-fashioned way here on my blog, and send the same rewards as usual. I'm hopeful lots of folks will be interested in the Patreon system, though, and we can build it up into something big and exciting for everyone! ^.^

So... Patreon.

I've been thinking about it a lot since people started suggesting it to me, and I think that now that it looks like I'm able to hit my goals for scheduling out new content for MVOL, it's time to take the next step. This month, probably later this week, I'm going to start up a monthly Patreon of my own so that folks can support My Very Own Lith by subscription and get cool rewards for doing it!

Now, the question is, how should I set this up? I've been considering that for a while, and I've been pretty nervous about it, but I've come up with some ideas. I still have no idea how to set the monetary amounts for the most part, but I thought that today I'd come to you all for feedback on what goals sound most compelling, and what rewards you'd be most interested in. Here's what I've got so far!

Milestones:

• Cut back hours at my day job
• New art with every update
• Hire on a specialized writer to help with expanding options, variety, and reflection of things like species, anatomy, and dominance to existing scenes
• Second tier rewards
• Further cut back day job hours
• Regular Livestreams?
• Two new pieces of art every update
• Switch from official update every three months to every two (meaning pushing for more content faster, and new art every month as well)
• Third tier rewards

I know people always want more content for the game faster, and many are impatient for things like more species options or the completion of the vagina-related content. I've been really focused on pushing the story forward since there's still so much to do, but if I could develop a strong rapport with a writer I pay to go through my old scenes thoroughly and add in things like new options for variable content and new variances to better reflect players' choices, then it could do a lot to reward the players and enable me to write without stressing out too much over the dozens of potential branches in a single sex scene. For more on this, read here: https://lithier.wordpress.com/2015/04/08/writing-lith/ about halfway down.

The Reward Tiers was an idea I had that I'm not too sure about. Some rewards would take a lot of extra work, and if only one or two supporters take it, or if I'm not getting much support in general, it wouldn't really be worth the time it takes me away from MVOL. So I was considering offering the option to start with a basic set of rewards, and then if I get a lot of support, I'd expand to offer higher tier rewards as well as add a little more value to some of my lower support slots. I'm not sure how much support people would actually be looking to give, so I'm spitballing a lot here.

I used to do Livestream now and then in the past, but it was rather stressful and not all that popular. I was considering offering it as something I'd start doing on the regular, partly as a way of forcing myself to write during those times with everyone watching, and I feel like maybe if it does get pushed into existence by a sufficient level of Patreon support, maybe more people would watch! But I'm still pretty worried that I'd end up running a Livestream and maybe two people would show up, but then I'd be stuck doing them over and over anyway because I promised.

Rewards:

(First Tier)

• $2: Cheat-enabled copy of the game (the standard donator reward, just given as a subscription, equivalent to roughly a $5 donation per version) 
• $10: Advance access to the official release (equivalent to the early access donators get to the next version when they donate $25 or more)
• See new art commissioned for the game early
• Lith's Diary? (an exclusive, monthly newsletter from Lith talking about silly stuff)
• Patreon-Exclusive Deluxe Version? (As a high-end reward, get a copy of the game that's higher resolution and with redone, prettier interface? "Shiny" version.)

Some Patreons offer silly little things as a sort of thank-you, and my first thought for that was to have something where Lith can just personally thank the higher-tier supporters. But that would get kind of repetitive, so I thought they might like having an exclusive little slice of Lith just being a silly cat as a regular thing in their inbox instead.

The other "silly thing" I thought of was to give you the equivalent of buying a hat in TF2: a vanity item. The "deluxe" version of MVOL might not be strictly better besides being higher resolution, but it would look nice, and it would be rare!

Rewards:

(Second Tier)

• Monthly Mini-Update (get an exclusive copy of the game with a sneak peek into the rough draft of whatever content I've created this month)
• Lith Stories (every month, I write a short, cute story exclusively for these supporters about Lith, whether from before the void, in the void, or after...?)
• Spoilers Answered (every month, send me a question, and no matter how spoilerific, I'll answer it honestly, and briefly, in private. Keep Lith's secrets!)
• Petre's Secret Stash (every month, get a newsletter from Petre with tips on how to find secret scenes or use the cheats to best effect)
• Name Game (get a custom-made version of the game just for you, in which Lith actually knows your name --you send me the name you want to go by-- and calls you by it in the game)

I get a lot of questions about the game, whether it's how to do something particular or whether I'll be including something in the future. I'm very tight-lipped about spoilers because I want to make sure everyone gets the maximum experience, but if it will entice people, I may be willing to quietly admit a few tantalizing secrets, and ask that those I tell keep it close to the chest... And Petre would be happy to give a few tips on things you might have missed or never heard of, though it may be hard to keep coming up with more of these forever, especially given my most enthusiastic players may already know most of them.

It's an intentional part of the design that your name isn't really spelled out anywhere, and obviously you don't get to enter your name normally, but I thought that if players really wanted, I could make an exception where, just for you, because you're such a generous supporter, Lith knows your name by heart.

Rewards:

(Third Tier)

•  Raffle: Ask Lith (Every month, one or a few people selected at random from this group can send Lith their refs, personal descriptions and so forth, and ask him one personal question. Like, say, "do you find me attractive?" or "how would you like to be my pet?" or "would you like to go on an adventure with me?" or just about anything you can think of, and Lith will answer!)
• Daily Sneak Peek (Whenever I write any new content at all for MVOL, I'll send it to these supporters in text files. They'll be the first to see what's new with Lith before me, myself.)

I was trying to think of ways to help people connect a little more individually with Lith. A close second to this was inviting the winner of the raffle to an exclusive chat session with Lith, though I'd be a little nervous about that getting overly creepy/stressful/out of control if a person wins and is rather uncouth about handling it. It might still be worth a shot, though, maybe if I just set a few ground rules ahead of time.

And it doesn't get any more supporter-oriented than going straight from my pen to your screen!


Alright! That's everything I've got so far. Which of these ideas sound really exciting to you? Which sound boring, or like they might be more work for me to do than they'd really be worth when I could be working on MVOL instead? A lot of Patreon pages don't actually have all that many rewards from what I've seen, so I have the feeling I need to trim this down by a TON xP But even so, if you have any ideas for other kinds of rewards or milestones you'd like to see, please let me know! I'd hate to let a good idea go unheard until after I've already got this all set up and people (hopefully) start signing up!

I'm pretty excited about this, and a little scared it'll all crash and burn! Share your thoughts, and maybe we can make this support system something awesome itself! :3

The Good Ol' Scramble

Nothing like a deadline to bring things together, huh? I've finished a single route for the final chapter, though a lot of details and small parts need to be added still. But I managed to integrate it all into the game and send it off to my proofers before going to bed, and I'm hoping to add more in the next week or two. Got another few bits I'm hoping to get in before release, too, so this should be pretty suspenseful, but right now, the game is shaping up like I'll hit deadline.

(++++++====)

60%, giving a margin on the end for all the last-minute stuff with proofing, updating details, and different versions. Now, if I could just find the time for all the extra stuff I want to get going on the side with the game... Look forward to more announcements, folks! ^.^

Time to Get Serious!

The goal is to have v0.17 ready and out sometime in June, and with all the preamble a release requires, that means I'm drawing in tight on my deadline for writing new content. The second chapter behind the stone door is finally complete, but I'm still working on adding what I can for the third and final chapter. I'm aiming to have at least one path of roughly twelve complete, and hoping I might be able to add more before release. As it stands, I'll estimate I'm at about...

(+++++=====)

Halfway there! I've been pounding out a lot for MVOL in the last week or so as the deadline looms up, and I still feel like I have a lot more I need to get in there. I still need to learn to respect this schedule and work more reliably even when it's not close to the end, but if anything, this is proof that the schedule is a good idea for keeping production going more quickly on the game.

As things start to pick up, I'm expecting to come back with more news, more frequently, so keep an eye on this blog! :3 And again, if you're ever wanting a more consistent, constant stream of information from me, I've been updating my Twitter (@Lithiers) every day I get writing done, and my personal blog is still going strong, though I've been considering changing up its schedule. Recent posts include a preview for the next version of MVOL, two previews for my first exclusive eBook, and a variety of rants about things ranging from the role emotions play in modern society to sex scenes in film and books. Come check it out! ^.^

Hiccup

Hey, folks! Well, I went and let the blog slip a bit. Last month I was mostly tackling other projects, but I did manage to finish the other black collar stone door path up to the stopping point v0.16 established. I'm hoping to get the other pink collar route done and push on into the next and final stage of the stone door for at least some of the paths in time for v0.17 in June. I'm not sure yet what else I'll be packing in there. I'm hoping to start ramping up work on the game, though last week was pretty rough for me and I didn't get a lot done. With that said, I have at least made some progress with the next update:

(++=======)

I'm hoping to put a lot more in there before it's ready, so I'm calling it just 20% right now. If you'd like to get more reliable information on what's going on with me, you can follow me on Twitter at @Lithiers where I'm trying out announcing each time I get some writing done, even if I can't go into the specifics about it, and I'm still updating my personal blog three times a week, even if I did end up a day late with my most recent post xP Sometimes it's previews of things I've written but not yet released, sometimes it's a thorough and formally composed exploration of a certain topic, often related to philosophy or writing, and sometimes it's the wild ranting of my barely conscious self, asking questions or blathering about something I care about. If you have the time for a little extra reading, I've been told it's been enjoyable overall.

And speaking of projects I can't speak of, I've recently been engaged in a new and very interesting Project X. I was partly putting off a new post because I was hoping I could properly announce it sooner, but things have been delayed a couple weeks, so for now, I think it's better if I wait. Keep your eyes and ears open, though, as hopefully I'll have some pretty cool news for you guys soon! :3

Balance update!

I've been getting a lot of feedback on the game with the new release, and I went ahead and went through some parts of the game trying to track down problem areas. The new scale of effect for changing stats did cause a few problems, so I've made some adjustments for that, and I've worked to make pink and blue collars work a little better as well as make dominant Lith a little easier to achieve. I look forward to seeing how these changes affect the gameplay and getting more feedback from you all :3

To get the update, go to your download location of choice, open the game in your browser, and force refresh it. This may require ctrl+F5 or something else depending on your browser. That should get you the newest copy ^.^ Happy gaming!

v0.16 is Live!

Head to the 'Play the Game' tab to check it out!

It feels good to hit the schedule! I would have liked to have gotten it out a little further from the deadline, but with how little time I gave myself from deciding to make this happen, I guess it's not surprising I needed all I could get. I would have really liked to at least fully complete this step in the stone door story --I cannot imagine how many times over the next three months I will have to explain the missing piece-- but I have to accept that a degree of regularity is important, and this this will push me on to set stronger, more solid and more achievable goals for the future.

So! The update's big addition is the second trip through the stone door. Every collar will be able to return to that place, but not every combination of collar and choice from the first visit. Two out of the six possibilities are unavailable for this version. These choices will continue to be important for the rest of the stone door, so if you haven't already, now may be a good time to make some save files following either choice, if you want to see every bit of what's available as it comes out!

The second addition is my mysterious "bonus." I'm pretty pleased to finally include it, and I hope to be adding more in the future. I was actually surprised with how little it increased the game's file size, so that's great. My last hint is that you'll find it early on in the game. Don't worry too much about missing it-- I've added a small system upgrade for making sure experienced players don't miss certain important events in the game :3

I still feel like this update could have done more, been larger, but as I mentioned, it's half the size in new text of the v0.15 update-- but delivered in one quarter the time. That's certainly an improvement, and much more in line with my new resolution to offer smaller, more rapid updates! The next update is scheduled to come out in June, and I hope that with the full three months scheduled out ahead of me, I should be able to pack a lot more in!

I hope you enjoy the new content, everyone, and thanks for playing!

Ready and Waiting...

It was a bit close, but v0.16 is complete, on schedule! I sent out advance copies two days ago to everyone that donated $25 or more to v0.15, and I plan to make the public release next weekend. If you just can't bear to wait until then, though, as of this journal you can donate any amount to get your own advance copy of v0.16 with cheats enabled! And, of course, if you donate $25 or more that will put you on the list to get a copy of v0.17+ ahead of everyone else.

Also, the TagIt sale is still going over on SoFurry and FurAffinity! If there's any themes or kinks you've been wanting to see me write about, now's the time to put your money where your wishlist is and make me write about them! Also, I'd like to clarify that buying multiple tags is allowed, and that you don't have to worry about the transition to latecomer prices if you're buying them in one big bundle, just to keep it simple. I wanted to encourage some diversity, but at this point, it's more important to me that we fill all the slots so I can get to work!

On Schedule!

Well, it doesn't look like I'll be busting it out early, but so far it looks like I'll have v0.16 ready just barely in time to send out advance copies this coming weekend to those that have donated $25 or more on v0.15, and I should have it all polished up and good to go by the weekend of the 28th for the public release. It's getting close!

(++++++++==)

My proofers have been giving me some positive feedback on the new content. There's no sex scene in this wave of content, but I hope you'll all enjoy a little more in-depth character development as the nature of the world behind the stone door really starts to set in. It's also shorter than the v0.15 update, but half the words in a quarter of the time is a pretty decent improvement, I think xP I hope you'll find it worthwhile!

Also, I've finished my first TagIt story, the one we voted on here a few months ago, and I'm getting ready to post it this coming weekend as well. Along with that, I'm getting ready to start the second TagIt, the "for realsies" one where anybody can pop in and buy a tag to make sure I'm writing about the topic of their choice in my next story! :3 If you'd like to get in on it, keep an eye out for my journals on FurAffinity and SoFurry this coming Friday!

Let's get this thing rolling...

I've sent out a check-in request to my proofers, so if you're on that list, please make sure you're checking your email! Similarly, if you want to help contribute to the game and get a super early sneak peek at new content while you're at it, check out the application process to become a proofer and join in. I'm not looking for people that just want early access, but those that enjoy it as a side benefit of a job well done. Take a look if you think that's you!

Now, for MVOL news. I've refined my goals for the writing I need to get done, pulled them back a little more and evened them up. It looks like the main new text content for v0.16 will be three new scenes, one for each collar. The bad news is, they're a little short and there's no real sex scene among them-- these are more for character and story development behind the stone door, working us up to the big conclusion. Now, since I jumped on this new schedule when I was already two months in, I think this may end up being a lighter update than those that will follow, where I'll have the deadline in mind from the start.

On the bright side, there's a little bit of extra content coming with this version. I won't go into specifics since I'm still working on it and I'm not sure what all will make it for this one, but I hope it'll make up a little for this version having less of "the juicy stuff" than usual.

That said, I think the writing side of things is 90% done now, so I'm bumping up the meter.

(++++++====)

60% seems a little shy for this close to deadline, but that's mostly padded with it being lots of smaller things, each of which have the possibility to go horribly wrong. So uh, hopefully this last chunk goes smoothly and we see a release sooner rather than too close to the end of the month! Thanks, everyone!

Spooky Stuff!

Wolves are spooky! The final Part to the first Chapter of To Own a Wolf is up on Amazon Kindle, so if you can't stand to start a story without reaching a nice conclusion, now's a great time to have a look!

But that's not the really spooky thing today. I don't know how many of you heard, but a few days ago Google announced a moratorium on adult content on blogspot. Now, I decided to refrain from flipping out and trusted that my concern with this issue would be shared with many others, and that there would be a certain amount of feedback. I could only hope that Google would listen.

Well, it looks like the other shoe came down just in time for my Friday update, thankfully. It seems that they've decided not to root up their entire adult blogging community, but rather to enforce their existing policies a little more strictly to root out people straight up selling porn on here, especially that which does not belong to them or which depicts illegal acts.

So I've gone from very concerned to... somewhat concerned. I don't believe that the MVOL blog falls into the categories they're trying to root out, but I worry that whoever they have appraising these blogs for unacceptable content will see only the sensuality and not the art of what I am trying to accomplish with My Very Own Lith.

If I am told to remove content from my blog, I will have to find somewhere else to make the new home for MVOL. I've heard good things about Tumblr. Hopefully this will all blow over without much trouble, but should such a thing happen, it may be somewhat... sudden. So I thought I'd best let you all know. Thanks, everyone, for-- oh, wait.

While I'm here, I should mention, I have been making progress with MVOL. I've been getting a better handle on just how much content the rest of the stone door will involve, and how I can pare it down to an experience that is rich and rewarding but not so extensive that it becomes overburdening for anyone trying to explore it in full (and not so colossal to write that it kills me). So between getting more writing in and adjusting my expectations to try and get ready for a release by the end of March in keeping with my new deadline goals, I'm bumping up the progress meter!

(++++======)

Forty percent may be conservative, but there's a few bits besides the writing that I really need to get started on, so hopefully while I've got the written content in with my proofers in mid-March I can get to work on the rest of that. Hopefully I'll have more good news for you soon!

Enough is Enough

I've been working myself up into a better place, both through easing up out of the funk and trying to find ways to improve myself so that I spend less (or preferably no) time right out not doing anything. Today is a good example: To Own a Wolf, Part Four is up on Amazon for Kindle, and I actually slammed out a bit of a story as an homage without particularly meaning to, which you can check out over on SoFurry and FurAffinity. It's a bit of a stretch into the kinkier stuff I've been enjoying quietly for quite a while and publicly more recently, so you can look forward to some size difference, vore, and a bit of all-around weirdness. It felt great to write something just for the fun of it rather than as an obligation.

But planning and scheduling is also a big part of how I work, and while it's helped me keep my personal blog going and nicely productive, I've decided it's time for some more aggressive steps. My progress with MVOL has been, frankly, abysmal. Even for a one-man project, even with other stuff going on the side, any time I look back at what kind of actual time frame this work has happened in, I physically cannot believe it, and I am ashamed. So. Enough is enough.

From here on, I'm going to release a new version of MVOL four times a year: in March, June, September, and December. Whatever I have ready when the deadline comes up will just have to be enough, even if it means not covering every route fairly, including all the content I want to offer, or even including a new sex scene. It's my hope, though, that setting this as a hard goal for myself --and committing to it publicly-- will act as an impetus to get me more focused on the project. Deadlines can be an important part of productivity, and I've gone too long without one on this project. Who knows, if this works well, maybe I'll be able to set up something along the line of a Patreon down the line, assuming I can actually manage fairly regular new content.

Three months is the compromise I'm setting for myself for now. At first reflection, I can't help but feel like it's terribly stifling-- the last update took literally about a year. Just getting the new content proofed can be a week or two, and I release to the largest donators a week early, so it feels more like only two months, and I don't know how I'll deal with all that. But it's time for me to kick myself in the butt a bit here. Three months for a single update also seems like a terribly long time, still embarrassingly so, especially compared to most other projects of its ilk available. I'm interested to see how this works out, and I hope you are all sharing my shaky excitement for what this could mean for the future if it goes well.

I'd like to send my thanks out once more to everyone that's been so supportive of this project, and all my extraordinarily patient fans. It's my fervent hope that this marks a serious turning point in this project for the better.

Just promise me that you all won't let me get away with flaking out on this :p

Slow and Steady

Hey, folks! Got a few updates I've been meaning to mention, and I reckon it's past time I get to it.

First off, if you haven't been following my other blog, you may not be aware that To Own a Wolf Part Two and Part Three are up on Amazon for kindle! It's felt great to dust off these stories and tighten them up to really read smoothly. I remember feeling pretty proud of them back in the day, but as I've grown as a writer, I've picked up a few things, haha. I personally really like how Part Two came out, and I hope you guys will enjoy them if you have the chance.

Secondly, speaking of my personal blog, it's been going along updating regularly! If you haven't been reading, you've missed out on the in-depth origin of both Lith and MVOL, two snippets from my upcoming Tag It story, some interesting little stories from me you won't see anywhere else, and a variety of rants on many subjects, especially the tribulations of creativity and writing. What's coming up next? Who knows? I sure don't!

And, lastly, a short word on my progress with MVOL. I've been working on and off on the content for the second visit to the Stone Door, and it's gradually turned into a more ambitious and heavy piece of writing than I originally expected. Right now I'm considering the best way to divide it into smaller pieces so that I can release v0.16 a little sooner. My main two options would be to either divide it up by route, such as only including the pink collar paths and one of the two decision paths from the black, or by progress, so we can get a little bit of something for everyone, without actually getting all the way through this chunk of the story as I'd envisioned it. The main drawback to the former would be that if you only follow a particular path in the game, you effectively get no real new content. The main drawback to the latter would be that it may well not have any sex scenes at all in the update @_@; So that's the dilemma I'm wrestling with when I'm working on the game, in between the Tag It, stuff for the other blog, and an odd little story you may be seeing soon. But for now, progress!:

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I really should just make little pictures for this or something. Right now we're at 20% to v0.16. I've got a fair bit written up, but if I was going to cram EVERYTHING in that I wanted for v0.16 I'd have to either trim back the story some or go a looong ways still. So I may be setting my goal for this chunk a little lower, in which case we might be at more like 30 or 40% currently.

I've also got a new little treat ready to add to the next update :3 I hope you all will enjoy it!

Three things!

First thing! I've started a new blog! Its purpose is manifold, but through the link is an in-depth explanation of how and why it's come to be. The short version is, more or less, that it is my personal space to post up all sorts of things, be they related to writing, gaming, or anything else. Expect long rants and snippets of my writing often, as well as a more comprehensive series of updates on just what I'm doing or releasing at any given time. I plan to update it regularly three times a week, so it'll be more active than this blog, and if you enjoy reading the various things I write, this may well be a treat for you. I hope that everyone remotely interested will at least have a look, as today's post is also a sneak peek at my upcoming TagIt story :3

Second thing! I've released my second eBook! The To Own a Wolf series is one of my old standbys, and it was so popular that when I held a reader vote on which series to add a second chapter to, it won by a landslide. I've removed the original series from the public area, edited it up to better meet my current standards of writing, polished up all the little bits, and I'm publishing it in Parts on Amazon in the hopes that folks will enjoy the reborn, fully finished series even more! I did save everyone's feedback as well before deleting the originally published works, as I got a lot of great feedback both in praise and criticism, and I went ahead and took a few folks' comments anonymously to add to the ebooks' pages as they come out :3 My thanks to everyone that left kind words on my stories! Also, I commissioned a piece of art from Clockwork Caribou to illustrate the cover, as seen below!

Third, final thing! I've started a Twitter account! While my new blog should be a pretty comprehensive place to find out what I'm up to, I guess Twitter will be where I make sure to link to every single thing I do comprehensively, as well as give little bits and pieces of my process and day to day. Or something like that! I'm not sure yet. But that's what you do with a Twitter, right? Dang kids and their birdchirpin' social networks...

So that's three big new things for you to check out! And it's not even that horribly long a post! @3@ Well, THIS one isn't... Hope you enjoy! :3