Yes, I have not been posting daily chapters to @literotica. Everyone gets burned out. Even when you are doing something you love. But I have remained busy.

Literotica has always been the place where I ‘write.’ By that I mean, all my stuff on Lit are 1st drafts. They have little more than SpellCheck and now Grammarly before I put them out there. And since I release them in chapter formats, things can be inconsistent.

Ægir’s, which I am rebranding as Njörður’s is a prime example. There are almost forty chapters in that trilogy, written over the course of seven years. This latest name change that more accurately reflects Norse mythology (and makes way for another boat/another book) is just the latest. I changed locations from the Aaland Islands which while isolated enough do not have the magnificent fjords I always envisioned. And with that change came one in language from Swedish/Finnish to Norwegian. Oh, and the plot holes. Especially in the backstory with their father’s and Rachel/Petrine/Raquel.

What people don’t realize is that I never ‘finish’ a story. I am constantly tweaking, rewriting, and editing those rough drafts. My cloud is a mess with the various versions of them all.

The question has always been…

What do I do with the edited versions?

Of course, like other Literotica writers, I once dreamed of that elusive ‘bestseller’ moniker. Especially when it was just me and @PanKwake in that dingy London flat on benefits. I dreamt of being a mix between J. K. Rowling and E. L. James. I would write my smut on a napkin and make it big.

There are a couple of problems with that scenario.

1. I am a control freak. I am not interested in pursuing traditional publishing because that means I would need to surrender too much control to editors and cover artists. One of my pet peeves with Harlequin was always their covers. I got so tired of seeing blond heroes on the covers when the writer described dark hair. As for editors, I do know the rules. But sometimes I choose to break them. For emphasis.

All of that might have been well and good. There is an increasing number of ‘best selling’ indie authors. Except for problem…

2. I am crap at the business side of things. I hate mailing lists, social media, and especially the trading of reviews that were so common in the indie game.

I just wanted to write. And have people read my stories. That’s all.

Then four years ago, I met my own Prince Charming who is better than any hero I have even written or read, techie guru Alan Cox. If I ever wrote our romance, none of you would believe it. And when you have your own Millionaire Daddy Dom, selling your books and making it big isn’t the high pressure it once was.

I love my life (mostly). My priorities are Alan and @PanKwake. And I now have the freedom to explore other creative outlets, too, such as sewing/quilting, photography, and my latest #urbanfarming and #homesteading. But as Rainer Maria Rilke said:

Yes, I would die…and I do…if I go too long without writing.

But that still did not answer that burning question…

What do I do with the edited versions of my completed manuscripts?

And those bells and whistles like blurbs and covers that I still enjoy making myself.

Alan as one of the original Linux team has always been a huge supporter of the free software movement. And isn’t that really what books are…software/code? He suggested that rather than put them on Amazon with which I have a love/hate relationship, perhaps releasing them under Creative Commons license would be a better option.

So, that is my intent. Eventually, you will be able to find ALL of my finished stories here with those bells and whistles. Some even with playlists and adverts.

I began with my Ægir’s series because it was always an orphan. It is way too ADULT CONTENT for Amazon. If the polyandry and BDSM are not bad enough, the fact that it is brothers? Add in the element of reluctance/consent and knife play! This is NOT your Mama’s Mills & Boone.

So, I began this experiment a couple of weeks ago with Njordur’s Captive, Book 1 in the series. And today, I am proud to announce the release of the fully edited all bells and whistles version of book 2

Njordur’s Bride

I hope that you enjoy it. And feel free to share the story in line with Creative Commons license.

No, you cannot change names and places and sell my story elsewhere. You cannot change the image and translate it into another language and claim it as your own.

But you may download this PDF version for FREE. You may share it with as many friends as you like. Heck, if you absolutely must kill trees, you can print and bind the damned thing…but only if you intend to keep it forever. And only on recycled paper, please. You may even reformat it for your tablet if you have the software to do so. You can share those re-formatted files with your friends, too. As long as you don’t charge them.

For full details of what you can and can’t do, check out Creative Commons.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

So, what’s next you may wonder?

I am almost…ALMOST…finished with Night Walker’s Woman. I am working on the final scene. I hope to submit that to Literotica this month. Fingers crossed…next week. That story, of course, is Book 1 of my new Trouble Texas Style series which includes other @literotica stories (Tight Fittin’ Jeans, One Night Stand, and Small Town Secrets).

And then, damn her to Helveti, yesterday the Goddess gifted me with another idea. But I’m not telling you with this one yet.

And all those other unfinished stories @literotica, too.

And those finished ones, which need edits, covers, and bells & whistles. I am taking a tiny break from the Njordur’s series for a bit. 1) Book 3 Njordur’s Wife is HUGE. It will take almost a month to edit. And 2) I want to release something patriotic for the 4th of July.

I considered my Sergeant Mike’s series, but I think it would be better to release all three of those and possibly #4 for Veteran’s Day in November. I am going to be working on The Arrangement, but it is also too long. So, in the end, I went with my personal favorite story, Nothing Done In Love (NDIL).

Okay, now – off to update my Books page with this file and the blurb. Then to edit more in NDIL.

Goddess bless,
Tara