[Krista] Where I'm at and...

[Krista]

So... since Learned to Lie's writing is finished, I need to start thinking where I want to go next. I have a couple of options that I have entertained. LtL wasn't a planned project. I kept saying as I wrote through the ending of, "The Best Year," and then "Ridley," that I wanted out of the coming of age/coming out romances. I have been writing stories within those genres since I started this writing thing back in 2003. I rarely ventured away from it, even when I did the characters were younger, in their early 20s and weren't steady on their feet. They still had coming out and "coming of age" elements to them. 

I dabbled once in Fantasy, I don't think I have it in me to do a high fantasy. There seemed to be some interest in some of the prompts I did with fantasy elements in them, but I don't know if I 'ever' really want to do that. I like stories and characters that are strictly who they are because they are human. I want people to look at them and be like, "I know a person like this..." I've always liked writing those characters most. 

The idea I talked about before I have a working title for: Ellis. It was supposed to be in the theme of names as the title as the third entry. "Ridley," "Elias," and "Ellis." I never got around to Ellis, as Wildthing approached me about, "Learned to Lie," it was actually his story idea that he felt he didn't want to finish and I thought there was too much story potential there for the idea to never see it worked through. So, with his permission I took it on. Like I said though, it was always supposed to be a stand alone one-shot story. I've come to terms with the fact that I am not made for short stories. I would be if I could ever figure out how to structure an idea to fit that format better, as I think it takes a very different sort of development and mindset. Like, hitting the sweet spot in the story where you can resolve major plot points within limited space and words. The story has to begin and then develop in such a way that allows you to pace through all your development in a nice package. Obviously, I've not worked that out yet. I doubt I ever will. 

Ellis is supposed to be my complete stepping away from Coming of age/coming out stories. The characters, plot, etc. When I told Wildthing my ideas for the story he told me that it would likely be better suited to post as a Premium story. Not because he thought it would be a big draw and people would pay money to read it, but that it would have too many mature themes and trigger warnings attached to it. Which, are scary words to throw out at a story to begin with. It may be 'too' much for the general audience here. Sounds ambitious for me, really. I'd have to pull it off and the idea of doing a story like this wrong is a heavy on the shoulders kind of burden. It is because these characters aren't likeable, my idea has them doing/saying/being almost irredeemable people in different ways.

There is this theory, to make something worthwhile that your character, especially your protagonist must have redeemable qualities, something that grounds them into the spectrum of morality somewhere that people can relate to. If this were a scale between: Irredeemable and Morally Good, all three characters would fall one notch to the right of irredeemable. One begins and ends that way, one slowly develops to be that way, and the other a middle ground between the two. 

But that is the story that I've had in the back of my mind. It is a story that I've thought about enough times that I feel like I want to give it a try. I tend to give ideas a try if they stay with me longer than a passing thought.

The other is writing Ridley 2.0 focusing on the character Matt. A lot of you that read Ridley wanted that dynamic explored more, so I figured if I did a story with Matt, in his point of view, that we could explore that a lot more in-depth. But, I've also forgotten most of the dynamics I wanted to pursue with Matt's character and never did in the short writing project that didn't allow me to do by writing Ridley. (If you think you know those dynamics feel free to PM me, it might help rattle them around in my head again)

Ridley was also an escape for me from Jackson. Jackson wasn't hitting right with me during that time. I was tired of writing a live by the seat of his pants sort of character, and wanted to write a character that was heavily self-aware, to a fault. Ridley feels like a fluke to me, because I thought the story was going to be too heavy and no one would like it. I don't know if I could pull that off with Matt - different as they are.

---

Lastly, I could just retire. But those two are the two ideas that I'm bouncing around in my head at the moment. The werewolf prompt I started could be an outside chance if I really wanted to step out of my comfort zone. I'd need to rewrite it, change some of the names, because when I do a prompt I don't use some of my favorite names in the off-chance of using them in a more important story idea. But then I have ended up using Gavin 3x, so there's that... maybe the names need to stay as they are. 

Edited July 10, 2025 by Krista

[Krista]

I have a feeling that Ellis is going to win out in the end of my, "what's coming next," dilemma. It is going to be a trainwreck too, I think.  

[Krista]

I wrote the tentative first Chapter to Ellis.  I already feel bleh about it, so we'll see how this goes. 

[lawfulneutralmage]

Sorry, what do you mean by "bleh"? Is that positive or not?

[Krista]

18 hours ago, lawfulneutralmage said:

Sorry, what do you mean by "bleh"? Is that positive or not?

Bleh is the step below meh.  

-------- 

From what I want from the story, I don't know if it was the best start. I'll probably need some feedback on it before I feel more comfortable. 

[Krista]

I wonder, if y'all would be interested in my, 'Junk' files? Stories and ideas that will never be completed, so they're more or less "slice of life" sort of stories?

For example: I have the first chapter to the "Are You Christian," sequel. I stopped that idea, mostly because I kind of made it more darker themed with the first chapter... and I was talked out of doing it, because it seemed to undo a lot of the work the original accomplished. 

Then, I have "Curse of Love," which was a story idea that's a bit older, but never saw the light of day past a sneak peek. Too many issues with that story.

The... deleted Twilight Fanfic. 😮 

You would have to go into the idea that I never will be continuing any of these stories, they would just be little snippets of where my head was at one point in time. I will explain why each and every one of those stories ended up cancelled or why I fell out with them... 

Edited August 21, 2025 by Krista

[chris191070]

7 hours ago, Krista said:

I wonder, if y'all would be interested in my, 'Junk' files? Stories and ideas that will never be completed, so they're more or less "slice of life" sort of stories?

For example: I have the first chapter to the "Are You Christian," sequel. I stopped that idea, mostly because I kind of made it more darker themed with the first chapter... and I was talked out of doing it, because it seemed to undo a lot of the work the original accomplished. 

Then, I have "Curse of Love," which was a story idea that's a bit older, but never saw the light of day past a sneak peek. Too many issues with that story.

The... deleted Twilight Fanfic. 😮 

You would have to go into the idea that I never will be continuing any of these stories, they would just be little snippets of where my head was at one point in time. I will explain why each and every one of those stories ended up cancelled or why I fell out with them... 

That would be an interesting insight into your head.

[Krista]

On 8/21/2025 at 3:46 AM, chris191070 said:

That would be an interesting insight into your head.

It was a passing thought. I do have quite a few years of stories that I have let fall to the wayside. There's only one that I keep in the back of my mind. It isn't 'gay' though. If I was to post it here, I'd have to write that element into the story, but the main character is female, she is heterosexual, and it is a time period in which she doesn't have a lot of power over her own choices. I'm I think, 4 parts into it... written in 3rd person as well, which is a step I don't do much walking in.  

I don't know if it will be worth all the trouble, but if I do you'll be seeing it in "Krista's Prompts," because I don't do enough prompts to make that thing worth sticking around, but I do hope to rectify that one of these days... 

[weinerdog]

On 8/10/2025 at 5:03 PM, Krista said:

Bleh is the step below meh.  

-------- 

From what I want from the story, I don't know if it was the best start. I'll probably need some feedback on it before I feel more comfortable. 

Oh.......meh

[Krista]

1 hour ago, weinerdog said:

Oh.......meh

Still Meh, by the way. Ellis Chapter One, is the only chapter I've written for it.  

Might be time to change things up a bit... don't know. I need to settle down and try to get back into a creative mindset. 

[Krista]

Okay, I'm thinking the.. "failed" idea has run its course with me. It was a silly idea to begin with.

So I have two more silly ideas. One of which is rather obvious. It is called Krista's Prompts for a reason, right? That is the spot where I was going to do the weekly prompts whenever I had the time and/or one of them called out to me.

So, I will look back and do some of those prompts. (Rather late, than never?)

Or,

"Guess the Fanfiction?" Where I write a short one-off Fanfiction and have you guys guess the world/characters that they are based in/on? No rewards for guessing correctly, mind you. Just something that would allow for engagement, I guess? 

I could do both... I need to be writing 'something' so that I can get my mind back on the creative side of things... 

I do have a prompt that Val gave me some months ago, I think it was actually for some mini prompt event thing? I wrote half the story then fell out of time... running theme for me, I know. I could start by finishing that one and posting it. I do not like the protagonist, so we'll see how the rest of the story goes.. lol. 

[Krista]

Just a tiny update, but the new additional chapter to Learned to Lie added 11,698 words to the overall word count, making the total just over 250k. I'm also about 8k into the second additional chapter. Still not promising if these stories will make the final posting schedule, as they weren't in the posting schedule. Or if they'll be left out. I'll have to see if they truly blend well with the progression in the writing. I'm not too worried they won't. 

And I would also like to say they move the pacing in the story along faster, but they actually slow it down.  I know... shocking statement to make. 

I also got my super secret prompt from Val, so I'll need to fit that in to my writing schedule soon too. Yikes. I might have bitten off more than I can chew.

[ReaderPaul]

@Krista -- I hope it works out for you.

[Krista]

5 minutes ago, ReaderPaul said:

@Krista -- I hope it works out for you.

Thank you.  I'm I guess happy to be writing something again. After I failed with Ellis for a bit, I stopped writing entirely for I'm guessing almost a month. 

[Jason Rimbaud]

On 11/15/2025 at 9:14 PM, Krista said:

Thank you.  I'm I guess happy to be writing something again. After I failed with Ellis for a bit, I stopped writing entirely for I'm guessing almost a month. 

Write about Jolt...that's what I'm doing. 

[Krista]

1 hour ago, Jason Rimbaud said:

Write about Jolt...that's what I'm doing. 

Don't post it, people might like your Joel better than mine and it will wreck me.  But, I still want to read it as a guilty pleasure. It would be interesting to see someone else take Joel's situation into a different direction. I can think of a few alternative ones. 

[Jason Rimbaud]

Just now, Krista said:

Don't post it, people might like your Joel better than mine and it will wreck me.  But, I still want to read it as a guilty pleasure. It would be interesting to see someone else take Joel's situation into a different direction. I can think of a few alternative ones. 

I have no intention of posting it. I could never touch your writing, and I wouldn't try. 

but I was planning on sending it to you because I want to make/force you to see that Jolt is the best!!!!!!!

[Krista]

36 minutes ago, Jason Rimbaud said:

I have no intention of posting it. I could never touch your writing, and I wouldn't try. 

but I was planning on sending it to you because I want to make/force you to see that Jolt is the best!!!!!!!

I'm definitely not one of these people that would get angry if someone took a character of mine and ran them in a different direction. Jolt could have been a really fun write for me, possibly. If he wasn't the first name cut from that sort of list going into the writing early.  

I mean, I'm not going to go Anne Rice cease and desist levels on you. 

[Jeff Burton]

7 hours ago, Krista said:

I mean, I'm not going to go Anne Rice cease and desist levels on you. 

I almost want to rise to that challenge lol

[Krista]

19 hours ago, Jeff Burton said:

I almost want to rise to that challenge lol

What's the worst I could do? 

[Jeff Burton]

59 minutes ago, Krista said:

What's the worst I could do? 

The thought is frightening.

[Krista]

I am over 8k into what is supposed to be a Prompt. Nice to see that I'm still keeping up old habits. Sigh. 

For the month of November I've written over 40k in words. That's a bit of a worrying yikes for me. All those words, one little me. I hope they don't read like I'm burning myself out, because I very well could be burning myself out on this much writing.

Oh.. and I'm still not done with the prompt... in fact I think I'm about to start part 2 of it... and designate this one as a part 1. 

[Jeff Burton]

2 hours ago, Krista said:

I am over 8k into what is supposed to be a Prompt. Nice to see that I'm still keeping up old habits. Sigh. 

For the month of November I've written over 40k in words. That's a bit of a worrying yikes for me. All those words, one little me. I hope they don't read like I'm burning myself out, because I very well could be burning myself out on this much writing.

Oh.. and I'm still not done with the prompt... in fact I think I'm about to start part 2 of it... and designate this one as a part 1. 

I think my prompt is going to top out at 12k and I’m at 8k as well.

I’m trying to take some advise from the secret author event and not rush the ending. But we shall see.

[Jason Rimbaud]

3 hours ago, Krista said:

I am over 8k into what is supposed to be a Prompt. Nice to see that I'm still keeping up old habits. Sigh. 

For the month of November I've written over 40k in words. That's a bit of a worrying yikes for me. All those words, one little me. I hope they don't read like I'm burning myself out, because I very well could be burning myself out on this much writing.

Oh.. and I'm still not done with the prompt... in fact I think I'm about to start part 2 of it... and designate this one as a part 1. 

Wow, when we get to see these words.  I’m on pins and also needles. 
 

 

[Krista]

16 hours ago, Jeff Burton said:

I think my prompt is going to top out at 12k and I’m at 8k as well.

I’m trying to take some advise from the secret author event and not rush the ending. But we shall see.

Great to see that I'm not the only one.  I started the Prompt the other day thinking I needed the time not to rush things... since it is far outside my comfort zone of one-note coming of age stories. The RNG didn't gift me that, unfortunately.