Ticklefanatic15's Writing Journal

Ok, part 1 of my first Megan Huntley story was published last week! That was around 1500 words, and will be followed by 3 more parts, plus a compilation of all four once the story is complete. For now, however, I am shifting back to working on Ashley Grable. Chapter 3 of the ticklish blonde's tale is intended to be around 5000-6000 words total, split into four parts, and right now I am titling it Working Late, though I may change that in the drafting process - particularly since the first part of it to be published does not really fit that title, even though the rest of it does. Part 1, which I am working on now, will have about 1500-2000 words, including a fair bit of tickling right at the start. I will be alternating parts with this and Megan's story, so next up will be Window of Opportunity part 2, then Working Late part 2, and so on. I had a very busy last few months, but things are finally calming down, so I am looking forward to getting back in the swing of things!

Now for the reflection on Window of Opportunity: while the story is not done, I think I have still got some things to say about it that will not spoil the rest of the story. The second draft was definitely necessary - draft 1 was unfortunately a mess by the time I stopped working on it. Currently, the story is exclusively from Megan's viewpoint, even though the first draft experimented with a more omniscient view - it rapidly devolved into head-hopping and sudden shifts in perspective. Perhaps in a future, smaller scale story, I will try giving focus to multiple viewpoints again, but with more clear demarcation.
The interview that capped off Part 1 was a very late addition - it was not in the first draft, and was only added to the second to ensure that Part 1 had some tickling, since otherwise it was just the introduction to the later parts. However, that last-minute inclusion ended up being the key to a problem I had been wrestling with since before actually starting the first draft, namely that I had nothing unifying my planned Megan Huntley stories, and in particular my ideas for the conclusion of the series felt weak and unsatisfying. I knew she was a reporter, and that her suspicions would be getting her into trouble, but beyond that most of the stories were just isolated incidents. Most of them are still not directly connected, but having all of them stem from Megan searching for more information on the Tiotown Tickler provides a little more reason for them all to happen to the same character, more justification for me to try to maintain some continuity between stories and characters instead of just making up a new sexy ticklee each time, and of course means that I can cap it off by writing about what happens when Megan actually finds her quarry. All in all, while I am disappointed that the story has gotten less engagement so far than my Ashley stories, I am still quite excited for where the story is going, and more importantly - I am looking forward to getting back to Megan's story, rather than being burnt out on the character like I was on Ashley when I finished The Right Response