Lubrican: Blog

The way I write is that I'll be driving down the road one day and I see a billboard that gives me an idea for a story. Or I hear something on the radio. As soon as practicable I jot down the idea and put it in my "projects folder". If I finish something, then I can go look in the projects folder for something else to do.

The other way this happens is that I'm reviewing something I already wrote, and which one of my kind readers has notified me has a mistake of some kind in it. I also review stories when a reader makes a specific comment such as "I loved the ending of chapter three." I go look and see how chapter three ended. Believe it or not, I can't remember the details of all 300 books and stories I've written.

So I'll be re-reading a book and think "Oooo, it could have gone this way!"

So I write it "this way". The plot is similar, but the characters are different. It's kind of like the way I do Alpha, Bravo and Charlie versions of the same book.

Some of you have heard all this before, but I wanted to remind you because I'm going to put up a two chapter "re-thinking" of some other things I've written.

It's called Preparing Amanda for Marriage. It won't go behind the pay wall until it's combined into an anthology of short stories that gets marketed, so you can take your time reading it.

It's basically about a father (who happens to be a teacher) who actually looks at the curriculum for what is called "Sexual Education" in his school. He feels like it does nothing to prepare young people for becoming sexual adults. He feels compelled to give his daughter some home schooling on the subject, since she has been asked to prom.

As I said, old plot, new characters.

I hope you read it and I hope you enjoy it.
Thanks for reading.
Bob

Okay, the review process is finally over and Version Bravo of The Asian Blues is ready to post.

I got a some mail during the posting of Version Alpha that referred to my "teaser" about Bravo involving incest. A lot of people said, basically, "Don't ruin this nice story by turning it into a sordid mother/son incest story."

I get that. And I would agree except that I don't think Bravo turned out sordid at all. I think it's the story of a mother, assisted by a young Asian woman, who faces heart-breaking challenges. This is a mother lioness who would run through fire to save her cub. We hear the phrase "I'll do anything!" associated with this or that traumatic situation someone wants a solution to. I think that's a little overdone, in fact, but Vicky would probably do literally anything to keep her son healthy and with a future that at least resembles normal.

Anyway. It's ten chapters long with an epilogue and it should be finished posting this week, assuming the chapters I'm about to upload get processed today.

I don't want to ruin anything for anybody. So, if you liked the Alpha version and don't want it 'ruined,' then don't read the Bravo version. It's simple.

As always, thanks to Michelle and Andy for making my books better and thanks to all of you for reading them.

Bob

A lot of you have asked when The Asian Blues - Version Bravo is coming out. It's still in editing and will probably be out during March, but I've been doing a few shorter stories while I worked on longer books. So I'm going to post one of those now. It's only three chapters long so it will be fully up by Wednesday

It's called I Married a Porn Star and it's pretty much exactly what it sounds like.

Except there are always details the average person usually doesn't get to know and that's what this story is actually about. Questions get answered.

Why does a woman decide to start doing porn?

What about her husband, if she's married?

Does she have any control at all over what she has to do?

Why would a man even want to marry a porn star?

Or, you can just look at it as a stroke story that I didn't code that way. It's up to you.

I'll just be glad if you read it.

Bob

I've mentioned this before but it bears repeating. My "process" involves working on two or three or even four projects at the same time. Whichever one piques the interest of my muse is what gets worked on. What that results in, though, is that two or three or four projects all end up getting finished about the same time. That stacks things up in proofreading, with Michelle and then editing, with Andy.

Now some of those things are beginning to flow out of the pipeline. The first is The Asian Blues - Version Alpha, which is 23 chapters and an epilogue long. I started posting that today and will continue at roughly one or two chapters a day until it's all up. Version Bravo is finished, but still in the pipeline. It's also shorter. I'll do another blog entry when it comes out so you know what the difference is. It's quite possible that something else will get posted before Bravo. That's just how the pipeline works.

Meanwhile, there are at least three more stories, mostly short ones, waiting to get into the pipeline so, in theory, I'll be posting fairly regularly in 2023.

I'm beginning the process again, pulling up new projects to work on. By the time you read this, that's what I'll be doing.

Thanks for your patience and, of course, for reading.
Bob

I'm starting to get inquires again asking if I'm still alive. This has happened before and the situation is like I have described before, but I'll provide an update to answer all the questions.

First off, I'm fine and I'm writing. What has happened recently was that I was working on multiple books at the same time and finished them all around the same time as well. That means Michelle, my proofreader, has a stack of things to look at. She's got a family and a job and a life to live, so it takes time for her to get around to looking at my stuff.

Then, once she's done her thing, I send it to Andy for editing. He also has other things to do than pore over my stuff. Both of these folks contribute a really astonishing amount of quality to the finished product. That gets noticed and it's one of the things that makes people keep reading my books.

So, there are three or four new books in the pipeline that will come out sometime in 2023, One is an Alpha and Bravo set about a young man who gets hit by a car at age 15 and is in a coma until he's 18. When he wakes up he has epilepsy as a result of the accident and needs a live-in caregiver. Enter a young Asian woman with a brand new degree in physical therapy and... well, you know me. Version Alpha is just her and the boy. In version Bravo his mother helps take care of him.

Those two can't come out together, though, unless I hold Alpha until Bravo is finished. Alpha is almost ready now and there's another book in the lineup before Bravo.

So that's the deal. Things will get done when they get done. I value Michelle and Andy's contribution to much to abuse them.

Thanks for all the interest.
Bob