The Marshmallow Ranch Gazette (Patreon)

Howdy, patrons!

I'm still trying to dig myself out of the writing hole, as you may have noticed. I have been working on the first chapter of a lighter story, but I almost immediately started trying to get it tied down to specific things -- which is precisely what I'm trying not to do. I'm beginning to suspect that my head is simply too full of writing advice; you've heard of the old Zen story where a student approaches a teacher with the minutiae of the Dharma, and the teacher responds by overfilling the student's cup of tea? When your brain is full, there's no room for anything else. Creativity, like Zen, needs space in order to be truly effective.

So I'm trying to give myself the room to be more playful with my stories, but it isn't easy. I understand why that's such a weird thing to say, but it's also true. I really do have to scale back my ambitions, or at the very least reorient them to telling a simply entertaining story. The rest will come in its own time, but for right now the most important thing is to have fun. 

This first story will hopefully be just that. I've been wanting to tell a story that combines my two great loves for a while now -- tabletop role-playing games and macro/muscle growth. Thankfully there are a few folks who've shown the way forward: Danath with his awesome Hyperia trilogy, and Luther Bat with his "Isle of Kinoa" series. If you haven't read either of those, I highly recommend them!

The Isle of Kinoa (10 parts): https://www.sofurry.com/browse/folder/stories?by=59801&folder=26768

Hyperia (3 parts):

Part One: https://www.sofurry.com/view/72466

Part Two: https://www.sofurry.com/view/149922

Part Three: https://www.sofurry.com/view/250803

Both of these series are really fun with that right mix of distinctive character, brisk plot and super fun kinky material. *chef's kiss*

That's what I'd like to aim for with "Monster Dungeon" -- a Dungeons & Dragons-style furry party goes busting up villains in an ancient ruin and get more than they bargained for. Of course, this leads to all kinds of giant, muscly, hyper shenanigans that they'll need to deal with in order to continue their adventuring careers. For now I just want to write strong characters, fun dynamics, and capture the feel of a free-wheeling, perverted D&D game told in story form. 

The trouble is that I'm such a nerd I tend to sweat the details: I want to build real character sheets for the party, which means a little more work. If they're furry races, then it's a bit *more* work either creating them or finding third-party content that does the work for me. And if I'm grounding it in, say, Pathfinder (my high fantasy game of choice) then I'll want to make sure whatever mechanism is used to cause all of this trouble can actually be used in a real game. Then again, there's no real reason for any of that -- it'd be enough to paint the characters in broad strokes and drill down into the details later. But my brain doesn't work that way right now.

I'll admit, it's frustrating, fighting these impulses to commit to way more than I have the time or energy for. I think it's one way that my brain tends to deal with the uncertainty of writing by the seat of my pants -- it really does need an anchor that helps with orientation; otherwise, knowing me, there's the tendency to go to some really weird places.

That being said, the more I think about the fun I could have with the story, the more I just want to get on with it, so that's what I'll be doing.

My last day at the day job is this Thursday, and it's the one day of work I have left until I start the new job on May 21st. After a two-day orientation, it's off to Europe for Confuzzled! There's a LOT of time to devote to writing and getting ahead on multiple projects, which I'm certainly looking forward to.

For now, I'm still aiming to have four "first chapters" up this month; while I'm taking time in Europe, I'll have a poll up to hopefully see which one has grabbed people the most. The winner will be the 'fluff' story I'm working on that I aim to post 1500-2500 word installments for. 

Anyway, that's the dream! I can't tell you when any of them will be up until they're written -- I'm no longer in the business of promising stuff I can't deliver. I'll also be fine-tuning "Boundaries" so that, too, can be released later this year. 

As always, thanks for your patience, patrons. I'll see you around the ranch!

-Jakebe