Zeebop
CHYOA Guru
Someone asked the other day how I keep up with my writing (currently working on two series, one twice a day and the other three times a week), and the tl;dr answer is that I make a writing schedule and do my best to keep to it. But to give an idea of what that looks like:
The Daily
DOOMED is a multi-branching story updated (if I can manage it) twice a day. The decision of which branch gets the new chapter is based on likes; when a chapter hits 15 likes it is eligible for a continuation, 25 likes a new branch, and so on (up to 5 branches). To keep track of what's been going on, I use a spreadsheet where I track each branch and the number of likes each chapter gets, which I can sort out in different sheets, using highlight colors to tell me which chapters I need to write next. The aim for each short chapter is ~500 words, although this varies quite a bit (and I feel bad if a chapter is <300 words). Writing usually only takes half an hour to an hour, since it rarely includes more than a single scene in a given short chapter.
The MWF
My Roommate Is Possessed By A Brain Slug is a linear narrative for a single ongoing story, a rather slice-of-life science fiction yarn that tries to balance world building, character development, and sexytimes, to different success. There's no set length for chapters, but they tend to ~2,000 words. Because there is ongoing character development and a lot of background details to keep track of, this story has a living outline - usually just something pithy like:
012: Home: Dinner in the nude. Mel jerks off onto the sink. Jordan cleans it up with her tongue.
[Tuesday 15 Feb 2055]
Which is enough for me to have a broad-strokes idea of what I'd planned to happen during that chapter and when it occurs; the outline usually extends a couple of weeks past the current writing and is constantly updated as needed, with notes for future developments, characters' schedules, etc. Writing usually takes about two hours.
So the writing schedule for a week might look like:
Sunday:
- Update DOOMED spreadsheet
- Post a DOOMED chapter
- Write a DOOMED chapter
- Finish the Mon BRAIN SLUG chapter
- Update BRAIN SLUG outline
- Post a DOOMED chapter
- Write a DOOMED chapter
Monday:
- Update DOOMED spreadsheet
- Post a DOOMED chapter
- Write a DOOMED chapter
- Post Mon BRAIN SLUG chapter
- Outline/begin writing the Wed BRAIN SLUG chapter
- Post a DOOMED chapter
- Write a DOOMED chapter
Tuesday:
- Update DOOMED spreadsheet
- Post a DOOMED chapter
- Write a DOOMED chapter
- Finish writing the Wed BRAIN SLUG chapter
- Post a DOOMED chapter
- Write a DOOMED chapter
Wednesday:
- Update DOOMED spreadsheet
- Post a DOOMED chapter
- Write a DOOMED chapter
- Post Wed BRAIN SLUG chapter
- Outline/begin writing the Fri BRAIN SLUG chapter
- Post a DOOMED chapter
- Write a DOOMED chapter
Thursday:
- Update DOOMED spreadsheet
- Post a DOOMED chapter
- Write a DOOMED chapter
- Finish writing the Fri BRAIN SLUG chapter
- Post a DOOMED chapter
- Write a DOOMED chapter
Friday:
- Update DOOMED spreadsheet
- Post a DOOMED chapter
- Write a DOOMED chapter
- Post Fri BRAIN SLUG chapter
- Outline/begin writing the Mon BRAIN SLUG chapter
- Post a DOOMED chapter
- Write a DOOMED chapter
Saturday:
- Update DOOMED spreadsheet
- Post a DOOMED chapter
- Write a DOOMED chapter
- Write the Mon BRAIN SLUG chapter
- Post a DOOMED chapter
- Write a DOOMED chapter
This is a bit of an ideal and assumes I can squeeze in ~2 hours of writing/story management a day. That doesn't always work, considering I have a real job, laundry to do, sleep, non-erotic fiction writing, and other real-life stuff to do, and I sometimes miss sleep to finish a chapter, and often I regret the lack of time to proofread and polish. But it does largely keep me out of trouble.
DOOMED is less difficult than it might look because changing what you're writing engages the brain differently, but I usually have to take a break between writing chapters to browse a wiki or read a few pages from a book or something. Sometimes I can crank out a DOOMED chapter on a lunch break at work, but not always.
The Daily
DOOMED is a multi-branching story updated (if I can manage it) twice a day. The decision of which branch gets the new chapter is based on likes; when a chapter hits 15 likes it is eligible for a continuation, 25 likes a new branch, and so on (up to 5 branches). To keep track of what's been going on, I use a spreadsheet where I track each branch and the number of likes each chapter gets, which I can sort out in different sheets, using highlight colors to tell me which chapters I need to write next. The aim for each short chapter is ~500 words, although this varies quite a bit (and I feel bad if a chapter is <300 words). Writing usually only takes half an hour to an hour, since it rarely includes more than a single scene in a given short chapter.
The MWF
My Roommate Is Possessed By A Brain Slug is a linear narrative for a single ongoing story, a rather slice-of-life science fiction yarn that tries to balance world building, character development, and sexytimes, to different success. There's no set length for chapters, but they tend to ~2,000 words. Because there is ongoing character development and a lot of background details to keep track of, this story has a living outline - usually just something pithy like:
012: Home: Dinner in the nude. Mel jerks off onto the sink. Jordan cleans it up with her tongue.
[Tuesday 15 Feb 2055]
Which is enough for me to have a broad-strokes idea of what I'd planned to happen during that chapter and when it occurs; the outline usually extends a couple of weeks past the current writing and is constantly updated as needed, with notes for future developments, characters' schedules, etc. Writing usually takes about two hours.
So the writing schedule for a week might look like:
Sunday:
- Update DOOMED spreadsheet
- Post a DOOMED chapter
- Write a DOOMED chapter
- Finish the Mon BRAIN SLUG chapter
- Update BRAIN SLUG outline
- Post a DOOMED chapter
- Write a DOOMED chapter
Monday:
- Update DOOMED spreadsheet
- Post a DOOMED chapter
- Write a DOOMED chapter
- Post Mon BRAIN SLUG chapter
- Outline/begin writing the Wed BRAIN SLUG chapter
- Post a DOOMED chapter
- Write a DOOMED chapter
Tuesday:
- Update DOOMED spreadsheet
- Post a DOOMED chapter
- Write a DOOMED chapter
- Finish writing the Wed BRAIN SLUG chapter
- Post a DOOMED chapter
- Write a DOOMED chapter
Wednesday:
- Update DOOMED spreadsheet
- Post a DOOMED chapter
- Write a DOOMED chapter
- Post Wed BRAIN SLUG chapter
- Outline/begin writing the Fri BRAIN SLUG chapter
- Post a DOOMED chapter
- Write a DOOMED chapter
Thursday:
- Update DOOMED spreadsheet
- Post a DOOMED chapter
- Write a DOOMED chapter
- Finish writing the Fri BRAIN SLUG chapter
- Post a DOOMED chapter
- Write a DOOMED chapter
Friday:
- Update DOOMED spreadsheet
- Post a DOOMED chapter
- Write a DOOMED chapter
- Post Fri BRAIN SLUG chapter
- Outline/begin writing the Mon BRAIN SLUG chapter
- Post a DOOMED chapter
- Write a DOOMED chapter
Saturday:
- Update DOOMED spreadsheet
- Post a DOOMED chapter
- Write a DOOMED chapter
- Write the Mon BRAIN SLUG chapter
- Post a DOOMED chapter
- Write a DOOMED chapter
This is a bit of an ideal and assumes I can squeeze in ~2 hours of writing/story management a day. That doesn't always work, considering I have a real job, laundry to do, sleep, non-erotic fiction writing, and other real-life stuff to do, and I sometimes miss sleep to finish a chapter, and often I regret the lack of time to proofread and polish. But it does largely keep me out of trouble.
DOOMED is less difficult than it might look because changing what you're writing engages the brain differently, but I usually have to take a break between writing chapters to browse a wiki or read a few pages from a book or something. Sometimes I can crank out a DOOMED chapter on a lunch break at work, but not always.