Thanks! That's what I'm thinking too, that I've got time to just tinker for now until I settle into something. This happens to me almost every time I finish a story. Last year I lucked out because I ended up working on Heroic Measures and Bethlehem simultaneously, so when I finished one, it was easy to go right back to the other. That may be what happens with My Brother's Keeper and Fallen Angel until I figure out which one I'm ready to commit to.
That would be exciting if the same thing happened. How nice would that be if when you were in tinkering mode, both stories just kind of hit a stride, but one was slightly more than the other! And two years in a row too.
I think it's okay to have a "when the mood strikes" story too, especially if you make that clear from the beginning.
As for AO3, you should try including some kinky tags in PNecklace. If you sort the BSB stories in order of hits, that's what gets the clicks over there. LOL
Might be the way to round out that whole universe. Who knows!
Haha, it's not that kinky. Except for that little subplot I mentioned way back when and that seems like it's not the kinky subplots they seem to be into. If anything, it's more demons physically eating each others' body parts, but not in a sexual way. Although, I did write a part where I deliberately selected words that could be taken in a food context and a sexual context at the same time. As I intended, it upped the creep factor of the whole thing!
I agree with what you said about having two choices. I've found that the stories that scare or intimidate me usually turn out the best once I work through that fear.
A question for everyone: What story or chapter were you most nervous about posting?
I agree. There's a reason things scare us in writing and it's usually that we've hit a place where we can grow if we rise to the challenge.
Oh man! So many!
Let's see... I guess I was pretty nervous about Beta Sigma Beta when I first started writing it because it was the first solo story I'd written since PBox and it was outside of part of my niche market on the BSB fanfic world. At that time, I think people that really read my stuff knew me for PBox and Gobosei more than any of my failed other ideas. The other reason was that when I started posting it, I knew that I was planning on flipping back and forth between real time and AU time, but no one reading knew for the first three chapters. So I did worry that people would get to chapter four and stop reading it when I was like "Surprise, this is also partially an AU!" Also Nick was kind of an opinionated dick in that story, haha.
Chapters-wise... Two come to mind right away.
One was PBox ch. 25 "Deep Scars" where I revealed that part of Renee's anger at Minako stemmed from what Renee assumed was implied rape. Which yikes! It was never actual rape, it was all manipulation by Justin... But when I was editing it, I went "Oh geez, this does not sit well in 2020..." So I added a tiny bit that made it seem clearer that it didn't happen. But even back then, I was like "Do I add a trigger warning? Will people hate this?" Anyway... PBox is pretty dark on many occasions... I still worry that it was too much for an already dark story, but as with many other things about it... While I edited and improved, I didn't remove anything that was relevant to the plot or character motivations; only a few filler things where I thought "Oh man, this sounds so stupid... Exactly what an aging teeny would think the fluffiest of romances should touch on so briefly in the most irrelevant moments." Like even Ch. 10 "Heart of Warmth," which got a major rehaul, still has the exact same plot as it did before (Nick apologizes to Minako and says he didn't understand her feelings); it's just better conveyed.
The other was PBox ch. 46 "Chaos" ("God of Chaos" at the time) which featured graphic heart eating (and also I killed off AJ...) I thought, is this heart eating too gross? Like I know I said graphic violence, but... And also AJ died! And I knew if people did not like AJ dying... Well they weren't going to like what I had planned for ch. 47 "Sorry" or ch. 48 "Denouement" either! However, after writing that chapter, I had my six month writer's block, so I guess I never found out one way or another if people hated the Boys dying. None of those chapters ever got reviews on them and no one's ever told me they were mad, so I assumed everyone stopped reading because they were mad or forgot about the story when it went unfinished for so long.
And then of course ch. 47 and ch. 48 again for the whole Boys dying thing... But again. No one ever told me one way or the other.