I finished writing Gamer Gurl: Origins on February 1st. For the next 20 days I re-wrote it and published it to Fictionmania. While I was doing the re-write and publishing, I was trying to figure out what I'd write next. Five days later on February 25th, I started writing It's a Man's World. That's 47 days ago as I write this post. In that time I've written twenty chapters including 51,000+ words.
Twenty chapters comprising 51,000 words in 47 days isn't that bad. Especially when I think back to writing Just Dance or trying to write You're Not The Boss Of Me. I believe what's bothering me is the amount of time that I WANT to write but DON'T write. So, let's look at that. Why am I not writing?
The first primary reason is my migraines. When I went to bed last night, I had the idea of either writing this post or writing a chapter of It's a Man's World. I told myself that after I finished my normal morning routine I'd write a chapter if I felt I could or I'd write this post out, knowing that writing the post meant I'd likely not write a chapter all day. Here we are, writing this post. And why "can't" I write a chapter? A migraine. I have both the time and the desire, I just can't seem to concentrate. So, I can't really give myself too much shit on having migraines that prevent me from writing. It's the whole reason I'm not working and actually HAVE this much time.
But it's not just migraines. I CAN write though some migraines. What's stopped me before is not knowing where I want to take the story. Or at this particular juncture, having too many ideas on where I want to take the story.
Let's play catch up. I posted chapter 20, where Atticus and Catty break Joy out of Gilead, nine days ago. I now have them in the final society where I've had a LOT of ideas for scenes. Here's just a few scenes that have been banging around my head since I started writing this story. Hell, some of these have been banging around since well before I started writing the story:
- Joy getting a robot/android to teach her how to act in this society
- She'll actually have the robot dominating her
- Joy meeting a neighbor's son and finding him nice and sweet
- When the son turns 18, he becomes just another 'man' that helps Joy by having sex with her
- Joy interviewing for a job
- Yeah, she has to have sex with the interview panel to get the job
- Joy working at the library
- Joy finding out that women working means they're there simply for sex
- Atticus and/or Catty trying to convince Joy that staying here might be better than going home
- Joy finding out what started the war
- Joy going out with a female friend only to find out that the female friend wants to 'help' Joy get a man
- Threesome?
With all these ideas rattling around in my head, where do I start? How do I introduce the robot? When do I introduce the neighbor and his son? How involved is the neighbor? Does Joy get into a relationship that she starts to enjoy? Why does she get a job and not just have Catty do it? What are Catty's and Atticus' lives like? It's overwhelming on my best day but stiflingly so when I have even a mild migraine.
Yesterday, I planned on writing a chapter. To get past this overwhelming process, I went ahead and made an outline. I've avoided outlines for Gamer Gurl and It's a Man's World because it felt like it was going against how CHYOA works. The compromise I made was that this was simply a tool. I would follow the outline as long as it was useful but I would venture off it's path if the story led me someplace else. And I'd still wholeheartedly be open to someone else writing a chapter and taking the story into a fun new direction.
Now, I should add a note of warning here. Most of my posts like this include a warning because I talk about where the story is going to go, but unless something pulls me off this tack, this IS the outline of the story for most of this section. If you want to be surprised, then stop reading. Maybe skip below this section and see if I write anything interesting there.
Still with me? Okay, then here's the outline I gave myself exactly as I have it in my Word document:
- Gentle makeover – dressed as 1950s stepford wife including thigh highs, garter belt, heels, dress and jewelry
- Get told what Mishigami society is
- Women are free
- Men serve women, pleasing them at every opportunity
- All women have base desire to please men, so often men ‘pleasing’ women will include helping women to please them. i.e. oral
- Respect for marriage
- Catty and Atticus’ marriage is respected, so long as Catty agrees
- They ask if atticus is married to both Catty and Joy
- Married women are exclusive birth partners to their husbands
- Non married women are open to all men
- Married women are expected to stay at home, care for home and children
- Unmarried women are expected to have a job
- Job will primarily be about socialization and not work
- Get assigned housing
- New housing development
- Looks like 1950s tract housing
- Catty and Atticus get a home of their own
- Joy gets a neighboring house to herself
- Joy meets her neighbors
- Man and 17 year old son, wife/mother died in childbirth
- Learns that son is not a man yet, adulthood and accompanying responsibility doesn’t start until 18th birthday
- Man offers his son to help Joy out with chores; mowing lawn, setting up furniture…
- Man sends son home, offers sex to Joy
- Joy tries to turn down request, man insists “We’re here to make you feel good!”
- He starts with “Something you’re used to” and has her give him a blow job
- Afterward, he promises true sex ‘next time’. Vaginal if Joy wants to breed, anal if she’d prefer not to.
- Joy, Catty, and Atticus meet to discuss
- Share notes on what they learned.
- Catty learned she is to be devoted to her husband. To accept pleasure from him, bear his children, follow her ‘womanly’ instincts and care for his home and children. She can seek pleasure from other men, but never vaginally.
- Atticus learned that he is to care for his wife and give her children. He is also to be available to please other unmarried women, to offer his services in sexually pleasing them when they seem attracted to him, just never vaginally.
- Joy learned she is open to all men, is primarily expected to find a husband. Until then, she is to find a job.
- Catty and Atticus were given rings to signify their marriage.
- Make a plan
- Fearing that it will be like the Free Union, Joy plans on staying home.
- Atticus is expected to find work and plans on going to a job fair the next day
- Catty will find a library and look for ‘history’ books as well as any texts on this society
- When Joy gets home, she finds out that her Eileen is active and free for use without restrictions.
- Next day
- Joy stays home
- Son comes over to help
- Helps her pick out furniture and supplies
- Helps her set up furniture and supplies
- Is very nice and polite, almost shy, constantly calling Joy “Miss Williams” and saying how beautiful she is.
- Funny scene where he walks in on Joy changing clothes, very shy, very embarrassed, but sees her BRAT brand
- Slight slip up, Joy learns from Eileen she’s expected to ‘care for the neighborhood kids’ and offer to cook son dinner
- Atticus gets ‘high paying’ job at university
- He’s expected to use his pay and influence to get new housing, but begs off saying he wants to stay close to his cousin Joy (fears he will eventually be expected to move to more affluent neighborhood.
- Catty finds library
- Finds out history section is secured
- While not outright banned, history is considered bad as it was the time that almost destroyed the world.
- Only approved researchers or employees get access
- Finds society books
- It’s considered fact that Psychologically women want to be subservient to men and that men want to protect and care for women.
- Everything in society is set up around this ‘fact’. Women are therefore a precious resource to men and are cared for deeply. Including helping them be subservient without being demeaned.
- Women can hold any job, but will never hold responsibility over men.
- They agree, Joy will need to get job at library so that she can get access to history books
- After Atticus and Catty leave, neighbor shows up surprising Joy. He ‘lets’ her cook him dinner, while thanking her for taking care of his son.
- Eileen helps Joy make dinner, informing Joy he’s letting her cook him dinner in order to be nice to her.
- During dinner, in which he constantly makes Joy serve him, he controls the conversation
- Tells her about his day, about his life, about his son, about the neighborhood
- Finally tells her that his son shared her BRAT brand, and that he ‘understands’ that with her being new to their society and obviously being a ‘brat’ that he understood she would be happier acting like she didn’t want him to please her. And that he would help her by being insistent
- Takes Joy up to bed
- Happily spanks her (not hard at all) when she tries to refuse, noting that he’ll help her play out her ‘BRAT’ fantasies
- Eileen lets Joy know he will not force himself on her if she continues to refuse, but he will grow concerned and may call authorities.
- Has sex with Joy
- Afterward, while he ‘lets’ Joy cuddle with him, offers her an AI assistant to help her acclimate.
- Assuming refusal of help might also make him concerned, Joy agrees.
- Next Day
- Joy wakes up to son knocking at door
- He is there to help set up her AI assistant
- AI Assistant is Robot/cyborg/android that looks mostly human.
- He programs the Robot to know that Joy is new to their society, having trouble integrating, needs a firm hand on learning their traditions, and is a Brat.
- Robot enters ‘Head of Household’ mode.
- Robot displays two modes
- Head of Household
- Acts as combination boyfriend/husband
- Orders Joy around
- Punishes/Disciplines her when she “acts like a brat”
- Allows her “appropriate opportunities” for sex
- Insists on sex if Joy doesn’t seem interested
- Connects to Eileen and utilizes it’s neural integrations
- Mentoring
- Acts as a combination teacher/friend
- Educates Joy on women’s role
- Insists Joy is repressing her true desires, and insists that the best way moving forward is to succumb to these hidden desires
- Informs Joy that information will be submitted to assigned social worker who may assign further help if the robot deems Joy to be unwilling or unable to ‘learn’
- "Further help" includes medical, psychological, or even time spent in an intensive care facility.
- Robot won’t let Joy out of house
- “First days are important”
- Makes her clean and take care of house
- Makes her clean and take care of Robot
- Makes her make dinner, then serve it to Robot
- “Lets” Joy orally please him while he watches sports
- Has sex with Joy in “their” bed
- Next Day
- Joy convinces robot that she needs to get a job
- Robot insists she “dresses appropriately”
- High heels, pantyhose, sexy lingerie, pencil skirt, tight blouse with plunging neckline, dramatic/provocative makeup, hair up in sexy bun
- Joy goes to library to interview for job
- Interview panel is three men. Library director, manager, and librarian.
- Questions are sexist and demeaning
- Librarian wants her, manager doesn’t
- Director sends other two out to discuss job with Joy alone
- Is clearly offering a chance of sex, with little subtlety
- Joy willingly has sex with director and gets his vote
- Going forward: Joy will work in library, have sex with manager, librarian, director, and even customers. Eventually gets access to secured history areas and starts to research “The War”. Initially the history seems skewed to Mishigami’s current mindset, that a woman in power started the war. More research shows that the current head of the European union, a woman, did start the war by starting a nuclear exchange with Iran during a high tension stand off and a mistake.
- Atticus starts enjoying his time. His job is “research free” and means he can basically research anything. He is a highly paid university employee and lives in the lap of luxury.
- Catty researches gender and roles. Her research is constantly halted or delayed as she falls into the role of subservient wife to Atticus. Taking care of ‘his’ house, going out with her friends, making herself beautiful ‘for him’. She eventually finds that they do have the technology from the Free Union to change Joy’s gender back to male. There will be specific requirements that Joy has to meet including not having children or being pregnant, and having two citizens (one male, one female) agree she is the wrong gender. Atticus and Catty can serve as those citizens, but they both try to convince Joy to stay, saying that they can live a better life here and work to make this world better.
- Does Joy end up with her neighbor? Does she get transformed back? Do they go back in time and save the ‘present’ or stay in the ‘future’.
So, that's the plan moving forward. I think it includes most of what I want and leaves me room to be creative. I specifically don't include Joy's reactions to these things. To her neighbor, to the son, to the robot teacher, to the librarian, to the society in general. She's of course going to get sexual satisfaction, but will that erode her internal sense of masculinity? Will having to present herself as ultra feminine be good or bad for her? Will she end up enjoying this or end up hating it?
Hopefully I'll stay in the mood and will be able to write a chapter or two today.
One last bit to add here. Before I realized that I'm still writing faster than I have in the past, I was considering giving up this story and leaving it. I was mixing up my inability to write with a lack of desire for the story itself. I was also watching the readership numbers on CHYOA and seeing that they were pretty small. Very few comments, very few 'likes'. But last night my migraine made me put on an old movie.
You see, when my migraines are really bad I have trouble concentrating on 'new' content. Reading, writing, watching a new TV series or movie... these all fail to connect. I might enjoy watching a movie but the next day I could barely give you a synopsis. So instead, I'll throw on shows or movies that I've already watched. These are particularly good because when I'm getting visually overwhelmed and can't look at the screen, I can just close my eyes and nod my head down while I continue to listen to the movie.
Last night I put on Cloud Atlas. I watched it when it came out and then watched it again a few years later. I knew the story wasn't the most straight forward, but figured that might actually work in my favor. While watching it, I heard a line and it really struck a chord with me:
"A half-finished book, after all, is a half-finished love affair."
Even if I only have a single reader, I wouldn't want to leave them in a half finished love affair. I will therefore finish writing this story.
As always, the story is ongoing over at CHYOA. As I post this, chapter 20 is the newest chapter. If you see chapter 21 or more, then I've started on this outline!
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