June Tabenings and Etiquette and 'Seed' thoughts

As regards the Tabenings, I am sad to report no smut writing (so far) this week. Real life kicked into high gear round about Friday and for the moment shows no sign of letting up. Do not expect the conclusion to 'Pierced', or anything else, this coming weekend.

Now, I'd like your suggestions about something. People have been leaving comments on the blog, which makes me very happy. They are good comments and I treasure them. Like all responses to my words, I hold them close to my heart and they warm me. However, I'm not sure of the optimal way to respond to them.

I'd rather not go back to each post and respond to the comments one by one. That's not scalable, I think. It has been my habit since my very first story to try and reply to every bit of email I receive. I really like getting email/feedback and I figure if people are kind enough to send it to me I should encourage them to do so. I've failed a few times, but I think in all honesty I have replied to over 90% of all emails ever sent to me (not counting follow-up emails, just initial ones).

But it seems weird to me to respond to blog comments that way, one at a time. It bulks out the comment lists in a way that seems forced and artificial. Is there some way to keep a running "response" column in a sidebar or something? I could do a gazette sort of thing, responding to all the recent comments in a blog post, but posting that as a "regular" blog post also doesn't seem, I dunno, aesthetically pleasing.

So: taking suggestions. I would like to respond to people's comments - they are good comments, and I as I say I enjoy each one of them - but I'd like to do so outside of the normal flow of the blog.

Onward! People seem to have generally enjoyed the 'Seed' epilogue. I had always meant to include it; I just hadn't written it when I wrote the rest of the story because it lacks any erotic power. And, let's face it, what drives my smut is usually horniness. If the prose doesn't involve pussies or minds, it's waaaay less compelling for me to write.

This, by the way, is the true reason that 'Compromise' is unfinished. All that's left there is plot. Intellectually I know I should finish it, mentally I have it written, but what's left to write just doesn't grab me down there and thus, lacking other compensation, I haven't finished it. Well, hopefully 'Seed' has proven to me, more than to you, that I do have it within me to properly finish stories, even without big shiny delicious boobies.

Back to 'Seed'. I'm wondering if readers noticed that Khuluub's tropical utopia is, in many ways, communism. The state owns all the property, allocates it to the workers, and is upheld by a populace that's been indoctrinated to a religious fervor.

Oh, sure, there was that bit about joint stock companies, but if you examine it... well, let's not get into the weeds.

This allegory has long roots in our genre. "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" is, of course, the major example. Back in 1956 when it was released, the fear of communists - who looked like us only they worked for an alien, self-sacrificial ideology, one which could spread and take over your friends and neighbors, your very family - was a very real and not irrational thing.

Trilby else and I used to have long email discussions about this sort of thing. *sigh* I miss him. He was so goddamned *smart*. Older than me by a decade or so, he really understood the mindset of late 70s and 80s communist and anti-communist thinking and the effects it had on the world and on popular culture. And a zillion other things, to boot.

I always told him that one day our correspondences would be collected and, if not studied, at least read with interest when smut had become a socially acceptable genre and people could get degrees in writing pornography and researching famous pornographic authors. They'd dig up our decades-old naughty stories and dissect them as examples of the mind control smut subgenre. Yes, I am that narcissistic.

But veering back to 'Seed' again - that communist overtone was very deliberate on my part. I wanted to present a society that was in many was very appealing compared to its peers, but also a bit disturbing because of the unstated implications of what it might get up to.

Also Rhoda, the Quinyri, popped into my head fully-formed and was a fun character to write for.

That is all.