Looking Forward At 2023

Here we are, at the beginning of another year.

2022 was an interesting year for me, in a number of ways, not all of them good.

I’ve got a lot I want to talk about in this post, as a few things have changed. Let’s get started.

WHAT I GOT DONE IN 2022

  • I wrapped up the freebies trilogies, and finally wrote the Epilogue to Lust & Adventure.

  • I completed A Warm Place.

  • I completed Our Own Way.

  • I got three Raw novels out.

  • I finally started doing audiobooks!

  • I launched and almost finished the Monster Girl Inn Trilogy.

  • I took down my entire backlog and posted it to Smashwords and to this website as free downloads.

  • I wrote a short story that will be in a haremlit anthology called Damsels & Dragons. You can contribute to the Kickstarter here!

  • I managed to get at least some work done on my mysterious Horror Harem project.

And that’s it. In early 2022, I decided I needed to take a more relaxed stance on my expectations and prioritize my mental health. Obviously, not only did my productivity take a hit, but I didn’t really stick to it, as more than once I hit really bad, really hardcore burnout and misery. This is why I didn’t produce all that much this year. I’m hoping to correct this in 2023.

WHAT I HOPE TO GET DONE IN 2023

  • Finish Monster Girl Inn. I’m intending to finish up the third book soon, within the next week or two.

  • Finish Raw. This is sort of my big project for the year. I have 5 more novels to write in this series and I’m really aiming to get them done sooner rather than later.

  • Write a cougar harem trilogy. I’ll speak more about it later, but basically, I’m finally going all-in on a modern day, genuine cougar harem story. It’s going to be pure slice-of-life.

  • Get at least one horror harem novel written. I had a LOT of false starts on this one, but I feel pretty good about the current project.

  • I’ll be removing Like A Fine Wine in February. I’ll talk about it more below for the curious.

  • Get a lot more audiobooks out, although I don’t really have any control over this. It’s all in RGP’s hands, and so far they’re handling it very well.

  • I added an exhaustive bibliography that chronicles everything I have ever written. I’ll probably make a self-indulgent post talking about some of the titles I’ve never spoken of before that have been acknowledged by this bibliography.

  • I have released all of my backlog (save for Parasexual, but it is coming very soon) on my website as free, kindle-friendly files. You can download them all here! (Like A Fine Wine will be added after it comes down.)

  • I’m also hoping to get a bit more work done on my incest erotica and Dragon Age fan fiction, but obviously these are rather low priority at the moment.

You may have been looking for the rewrite of Our Own Way and the near-future sci-fi slice-of-life I mentioned in previous updates on the list, and if that is the case, don’t worry, they are not abandoned, they have just been pushed down the line. I will explain the reason for this below.

REFLECTIONS & REVELATIONS

A bit dramatic, but that’s what I do sometimes. I made references to the fact that I had been spending the final portion of 2022 reflecting on, well, just about everything. That, combined with a few other things, has caused me to reconsider my overall approach to my writing career. I’ll go over these changes and my reasonings behind them below.

  • Here was the biggest thing that I realized, and it sort of hit me like a truck: my haremlit offerings are severely depleted. Removing most of my backlog left my library anemic, and when I made the call to remove Parasexual & Like A Fine Wine, that was sort of a ‘holy shit’ moment. At present, I have 5 haremlit series on offer. While two of them are finished and series I still feel pretty good about, two of them aren’t yet finished, and one of those two unfinished series is a trilogy that did not do very well. The final series, while finished, also suffers from a triple threat of being A) novellas, B) poorly covered, and C) labeled as erotica. Our Own Way’s potential was mangled beyond hope of salvation without a full-fledged rewrite by my handling of it. But in my defense, it was just a little side project to help keep my sanity, I had no idea people would respond to it so strongly, nor that I would come up with so many extra ideas after the fact. Because of having such a depleted library, I realized, I need not just more titles, but more series, and quickly. This has led me to the decision of creating a few trilogies (like the upcoming cougar harem).

  • This leads into my next revelation: I really need to stop writing nine novel epics. It’s causing problems, and kind of on almost every front. Creatively, financially, from the reader’s side of things, just all around, problems. I’ve ultimately determined that series consisting of fewer, but longer, novels will ultimately be better for everyone. They’ll be better for me, because I can go through a series more quickly and effectively and stave off burnout, and they’ll be better for you as I feel like I’ll be able to deliver a better-told narrative. So instead of nine 60,000 word novels, I’ll be aiming for something closer to 5-6 80-90,000 word novels.

  • Next: I can lean more into the slice-of-life aspects of my work. From my perspective, my works fall onto a spectrum where one end reads SURVIVAL and the other reads SLICE-OF-LIFE. Obviously, Monster Girl Inn leans more towards slice-of-life, while A Warm Place and Raw lean more towards survival. The truth of the matter is that while I enjoy writing both, on the whole, I’m finding that I enjoy writing slice-of-life stuff more. Our Own Way was something of a revelation. I didn’t know people were so interested in something where the stakes were so low, comparatively speaking. I have a number of ideas that are more about slice-of-life stuff and relationship building, as opposed to fighting monsters and fleeing disaster. Though I still want to write about that stuff, too. So more of my content is going to be more Our Own Way and less Raw. Hell, I may even take a shot at writing a shorter, more slice-of-life trilogy or quadrilogy set in the Raw universe with new characters. Maybe. I liked that early-narrative feel book one had.

  • Final thing I realized: My pen name. I’ve been talking about launching a pen name for literal years now. A lot goes into the consideration of a pen name, at least for me. I don’t want to half-ass anything. The fact that I’ve been considering it for actual years is a testament to this. The thing is, this whole pen name thing has been kind of like a scale. One side of the scale is negatives, one is positive. For a long time, the positives outweighed the negatives. But as time has gone on, the negatives have begun to outweigh the positives. And this is now where I find myself. So, basically, I’ve decided that, and I want to clarify, when it comes to haremlit, it makes the most sense to just stick with Misty Vixen. If anyone is truly curious, I can go into detail, but the short of it is: it makes more sense to keep my works in one place, so long as those works are all haremlit. The reason I’m specifying this is because, in the future, I may want to write something that isn’t haremlit, but still let my haremlit readers know about it, and that would make sense to start a new name for. So, in short: I’ll be posting my horror harem to Misty Vixen.

  • Last thing I want to touch on: why did I decide to pull down Parasexual & Like A Fine Wine?

    • For Parasexual, I originally had intended to pull it down, but ultimately decided it was close enough to haremlit to work. But then, as time went on, I became less certain, even going so far as to pair it with a warning that it might not be for everyone. In the end, I realized that my initial conclusion that it should be pulled down was the right conclusion.

    • For Like A Fine Wine, it came as something of a surprise to me when I reread the first novel late last year that it wasn’t really a true haremlit novel. While it doesn’t actually break any of the rules, I realized that the relationships are too casual, and half the harem leaves at the end. Now, this would have been rectified with a sequel series, but as time has gone on, I’ve ultimately had to admit to myself that I do not want to write a sequel series and, overall, it would be a really bad idea to try it. For those of you who were looking forward to this, I apologize. I genuinely did intend to write it when I finished Like A Fine Wine, but as time has gone on, I’ve felt worse about the idea rather than better. So, again, I am sorry about that.

A LOOK AT MY LIBRARY’S FUTURE

Now comes my favorite part! The part where I get to explain how I feel about my works right now, and speculate about how I’ll feel about them in the future. If you’re looking for information on something from the past, the present, or the future that I have mentioned at some point before now, this is where you want to check.

  • THE OLD STUFF

    • PARANORMAL SHARED UNIVERSE: This includes PARANORMAL PASSIONS, PINK, ROOMMATES WITH BENEFITS, & PARASEXUAL. I’m still pretty confident that this one is dead, and I will write nothing in it again. The only spark of hope I have for those holding out is that I could possible envision myself writing something that’s basically Our Own Way, but with paranormal girls. If I do, I will have to determine if it makes more sense to create a new universe, or set it in this one. But I would say, for safety’s sake, consider this universe dead.

    • POST-APOCALYPTIC SHARED UNIVERSE: This includes SEX & SURVIVAL, THE PALE REDHEAD, A NEW WORLD, & HAVEN. I feel roughly the same about this one. However, I would say that the chances of my writing something set in this universe is significantly higher. I still like this universe, and in my quest to produce more series quickly, I may explore a trilogy set here. If I do, I’ll definitely ensure to involve cameos from Haven.

    • SCI-FI SHARED UNIVERSE: This includes HELLCATS, EXPLORATION, ALIEN HAREM, VALKYRIES, DESIRE, AMAZONIAN’S LOVE, LIKE A SEX TOY, BLIND DATE, & LIKE A FINE WINE. I think this universe is also probably dead. Although I have a few ideas that might make sense to set in it, it will ultimately come down to an in-the-moment decision whether or not to do something unique or revisit this universe. The more times goes on, the more I feel that the correct decision is to leave my old erotica days behind me.

    • FANTASY SHARED UNIVERSE: This includes WANDERLUST, LARGE & LOVELY, MY UNDEAD LOVER, ROYAL LUST, LUST & ADVENTURE, LAY OF THE LAND, SNAKESKIN, ADVENTUROUS & DEMONESS. This is the only one I’m confident that will have one more series, the DEMONESS reboot. I originally had a much larger, interconnected, and honestly epic storyline in mind for this universe, and as time has gone on, I’ve ultimately decided that Demoness will serve well as a vehicle for this storyline.

      • DEMONESS: I’m making a notation here. At the moment, I’m giving serious consideration to converting Demoness into haremlit. Now, I know some people will have an instant knee-jerk reaction to this, but hear me out. I began running into a problem around Demoness V, one that I knew would only get worse as time went on. John and Yelena’s relationship is really the greatest part of the series, but the thing was, I was running out of ways to make it interesting. A lot of the unique emotional difficulties that arose over the course of the first four novels made for some very interesting writing. But if the series had gone on, I would have run out of natural ideas. Adding in even just two other girls into the mix would solve this, and give me a lot more opportunities for interesting and unique interactions. It would also give me a chance to make an actual slow-burn harem, something a lot of people have asked me about and I’ve never really been able to deliver on. I’m still batting the idea around, and I’m open to hearing your thoughts, but I figured I owed fans of the series a heads up, as that would be a significant change.

    • A WARM PLACE: Technically not old, but it is finished. I’m happy with where it ended, consider it done. At most, I may set one or two of my incest eroticas in this universe.

  • THE CURRENT STUFF

    • MONSTER GIRL INN: This is getting wrapped up very soon and then that will be the end of it. In truth, I don’t really see much in the way of a future there, primarily because it feels like the story failed to really catch and hold both me and the readership.

    • RAW: So, I’ve got five novels left to go here. The story is pretty locked in, including the broad strokes of the novels. I’m hoping to have this wrapped up by June, but, uh…we’ll see how that turns out. As I mentioned above, a trilogy set in this universe with some more relationship/slice-of-life focus with new characters may not be out of the question. I’ve got an idea I’ve been toying with for awhile, but ultimately we’ll see.

    • OUR OWN WAY: I will rewrite this. I’ve got a LOT of ideas and want to make this like 5-6 long novels, expanding greatly on the characters and their plans and their attempt to set up a life for themselves. In truth, though, we probably won’t see this until 2024. I want to finish Raw, and then get at least a few trilogies under my belt. Once I feel comfortable, Our Own Way should be my next big project.

  • THE FUTURE STUFF

    • QUITE UNLADYLIKE: This is the short I wrote for the haremlit fantasy anthology. It has no connection to any other universe, though if you liked Monster Girl Inn or any of my old fantasy stuff, you’ll probably like it. I doubt I’m going to write anything else related to this. I wanted to write something that was encapsulated.

    • MODERN COUGAR/MILF HAREM: My next serious project after Raw. Basically, imagine Our Own Way vibes, but all older women. I’m feeling good about this one. I’m looking at this to be a trilogy of longer novels. I’m really hoping people like this one, as it’s something I’ve been talking about for years, and also people have been asking about for years.

    • UNTITLED SCI-FI SLICE-OF-LIFE: I mentioned this earlier. I’m still gonna do this. Still feel good about it. I like the characters, the setting, the general vibe of it. I’m also very curious to see how people react to it because it’s a bit different than a lot of stuff I’ve written.

    • UNTITLED POST-APOCALYPTIC SURVIVAL TRILOGY: A while ago, I mentioned somewhere possibly doing a simple, shorter series set in A Warm Place, that focused on a small group of people just trying to fix up a house and make a life for themselves. That was the seed of this idea. It’s an original universe, and focuses on a guy and a few women he runs into trying to fix up a shelter in the middle of nowhere with monsters and dangerous people around. This is probably what I’ll be writing after the cougar harem, as it’s the next in my trilogies ideas.

    • HORROR HAREM: Whew boy. It’s been up and down, side to side, thither and fucking yon with this one. I’ve had half a dozen false starts. But now, finally, I do feel like I’ve decided what I’m going to be writing first. I’ll be working on this one in the background where I can find time, since it’s going to be a gamble. I will speak more on this when I have news, but what I can say now is: It looks like I’ll be going with a Sci-Fi Survival/Horror. It’s going to have a video-gamey type feel (not LitRPG). Think sort of Doom 3 and Dead Space vibes.

  • OTHER STUFF

    • INCEST EROTICA: So I’d really like to make some headway on this. Get SOMETHING off the ground beyond just Kyra’s Game. I’m still going to take a shot at making Kyra’s Game a trilogy of shorts, and I’ve got a ton of ideas beyond that. Basically, I’m just going to be writing shorts for awhile. I’ve got a mom-son idea set in the A Warm Place universe, another mom-son idea set in my shared Fantasy Universe, a brother-sister story I wrote a few years back and never really did anything with, a mom-son series I wrote on the down-low under another name to test the waters and now want to re-release and finish. I know at some point I want to go big with one, huge incest harem series. Like, the production level of the other stuff, with full-on covers and full-length novels, stuff like that. Imagine basically Our Own Way type story/setting, but with incest. Really, it’s just a matter of finding/making time for this to happen.

    • FAN FICTION: The Dragon Age fan fic, THE MATCHMAKER OF SKYHOLD, has been talking to me recently. Enough that I did take it out, dust it off, and write a few more chapters near the end of the year. If I make much more progress, I’ll have to put it back up on the site. Otherwise, I don’t have any other fan fiction in mind.

    • LARA X. LUST: For the sake of clarity, and in case anyone was wondering otherwise, I had a heavy hand in writing the first three Desperate Times novels. However, I have had zero involvement in any other projects, including the fourth Desperate Times. It’s all Lara now, and I doubt that’s going to change.

    • CRYSTAL CANDY STUFF: Wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t cover this. Obviously A Warm Place was already covered. Maidens & Mayhem and Planet of the Bugs are both dead and they’ll stay dead. Refuge…I still want to do something with this, but I’m a lot less sure now how exactly it will manifest. Enough time has passed that at this point there’s significant overlap between this and another story idea, and I may just combine the two. But in either scenario, it’s still a long way off.

    • OTHER: I’ve got some farther out, more ambitious ideas up my sleeve. I’ve got a sci-fi/horror/adventure epic planned that’s been brewing for a long time now and I’m sure will brew for a long time yet. It won’t be like other series in that it will go on for quite awhile. I’ve got a sort of sci-fi/espionage blended with horror (and obviously harem) idea that’s also fairly ambitious and I think would be REALLY kickass to write and to read, but it’s also over the horizon. I’ve definitely got some more gritty survival stuff. But I don’t want to get too ahead of myself there. I’ve got more than enough to carry me through 2024 with what I’ve spoken of just in this post alone. Beyond that? Probably got enough stuff to carry me through to 2030.

    • FINAL THING: The last thing I want to talk about is that I’ve noticed a rise in Romance For Men, (there’s even a SubReddit for it now), and honestly I’d call a lot of what I write men’s romance. I gotta admit, the idea of writing a romance between one guy and one woman, or maybe one guy and two women, is really appealing. I’m currently considering putting together a new pen name (which was why I was so specific above) to experiment with Men’s Romance, as, although it won’t break any of the rules of haremlit, I can’t really call it haremlit (not enough ladies), and thus wouldn’t feel safe releasing it as Misty Vixen. Though I would publicly acknowledge that I wrote it. I dunno, let me know what you think of this idea.

I think that’s it. I hope everyone has a good 2023. I know for myself personally, my new year’s resolution is to find a way to balance my work against my mental health more successfully.

Good luck out there.

Monster Girl Inn III Preview

Finally, here it is!

This is the first chapter of Monster Girl Inn III, the final novel in the trilogy. You can read Chapter II over on Patreon right now, and you will be able to read all the following chapters as I post them, also on my Patreon for 3$/month.

Victor fought to quell the anxiety as it grew somewhere deep in his gut as he led Hazel through the trees of the Hinterland.

“I wanted to thank you again for coming, I know you’re busy,” he said, pushing back a particularly large and low-hanging branch, allowing her passage.

“I’m not that busy,” Hazel replied, “and this is important. In truth, I wish you had told me sooner.”

“We’ve been busy with the inn and the ring seems to be working. It’s just, she said she should be awake in a week, and it’s now the eighth day…”

“These things can be unpredictable. Can you run it by me again?” Hazel asked. “You were a little, uh, light, on the details of some of this. She’s...where did you meet her, exactly?”

“Ilona is her name. We found her in a cave. She’s the necromancer who was sending the undead all over the place.”

“All right. The fact that you’ve got her ill and comatose in your inn means the meeting wasn’t hostile, I imagine.”

He shook his head, ducking under another branch. “No, she wasn’t. She’s sick. Lethally.”

“I got that part, and that’s it’s exclusive to elves. But did I understand this right? She intentionally cursed herself?” Hazel replied.

“Yes. To be undead. To buy more time.”

She let out a small laugh of appreciation. “She’s inventive. And brave.”

“I think more desperate in this case, but yes, she does seem brave.”

“All right. I’m not completely sure I’ll be able to help, though.”

“I know. I might be wasting your time, this might not even be necessary–”

“It’s fine, Victor. It isn’t a waste of time. Even if I can do nothing for the poor woman, I have been wanting to see you and the others, and visit your inn again.”

“We’ve made a lot of progress on it,” Victor replied.

“That’s good to hear.”

A lot of progress felt like a bit of an understatement. Having Nyx and now Delphine around so consistently meant that they’d been able to get much more done, and having Ilona there to care for and fret over had filled them all with a kind of intense, nervous energy.

They’d all been doing everything that needed doing, and consequently, work that he thought might take over a month or even two had been mostly wrapped up in little over a week. Delphine especially was working very hard.

There were times where it seemed like she was full of energy that she was trying to burn off, always asking for a new task and then going at it with an intense, almost ferocious focus.

It had been a trying time for all of them, but especially for Nyx.

At this point, the others were starting to pick up on it. Delphine seemed to be in the know, as she just gave an understanding expression whenever it became obvious that the stress was starting to get to Nyx, but Fiona and Jezzy still seemed confused and worried.

In a way, it was very surprising and gave a deep and, if anything, worrying view into just how much emotions and trauma could affect someone.

After five hundred years, he would have thought she’d be a lot more stoic.

It felt like a double-edged sword.

It was good that she still felt things, and intensely. That the relentless passage of time didn’t wear away who she was.

But it worried him that even fifty years from now he’d probably still have nightmares and have the occasional cry over what happened with his family.

When he’d asked her about it a few days ago, all she had to say was: It never goes away, but it does get easier.

“Oh wow, you have made a lot of progress here,” Hazel murmured as they at last broke through the dense vegetation of the Hinter.

Fiona had told him that they’d be able to clear a path to the main trail and maintain it with a bit of magic and some help from Fauna and a few friendly dryads.

They’d replaced the windows, the front door, fixed the roof and patched the holes in the walls. And thanks to a neat little spell that Nyx knew, the repairs looked seamless.

Speaking of Nyx…

“Oh my!” Hazel gasped as a shadow fell across them and Nyx landed heavily not far away.

“Sorry,” she replied, “but I’m glad you’re here.” She walked over. Her wings were flexing slowly open and closed behind her, and her tail was swaying. “How have you been? Your shop doing well?” She glanced back at the inn.

There was a slightly manic edge to her voice.

“Fine, and yeah,” Hazel replied. “...are you okay, Nyx?”

“I’m just nervous. I was out flying, trying to take my mind off things, but that didn’t help. I’m worried about Ilona...Victor told you, right?”

Hazel nodded. “He explained to me.”

“Okay, good. Will you look at her?”

“Yes.”

They all looked over as the front doors opened up and Jezzy came out.

“Is she awake?” Nyx asked before she could speak.

“No, no change, I’m sorry,” Fiona replied. “Hello, Hazel.”

“Hi, Fiona. Why don’t you show me to this dark elf, Ilona? I’ll see if there’s any insight I can offer,” Hazel suggested.

Fiona nodded. “This way.”

“Are you a healer?” Victor asked.

“I’m a witch,” Hazel replied as they all walked inside.

The main room was still fairly barren. Furniture was the last thing they needed.

“What does that mean, exactly?” Victor murmured, following them upstairs.

“That I have come across a great deal of knowledge in my lifetime, and that yes, I am a healer, when the situation calls for it. You mentioned a ring blessed by a God? I don’t think I’ll be able to outdo that, though.”

They came to the second story and as they approached the room Ilona was in, Fiona opened up the door and poked her head out.

“Hi, no change,” she said. “And hi Hazel.”

“Hi, Fiona,” Hazel replied.

They’d gotten used to saying that, ‘no change’, to Nyx, because she’d ask so often.

They tried not to crowd as Hazel came into the room. She took off her backpack and set it aside, then did the same with her traveling cloak. Victor studied Ilona as Hazel approached her bedside and sat down gently beside her.

She looked better, there was no doubt about that, and not just because they had removed her curse and all of its most obvious markings. Namely her veins being visible beneath her skin and a deathly pallor. She’d seemed generally less frail and fragile now.

But there was no denying the sickness and the curse had taken a heavy toll on her body.

Hazel touched her wrist for a moment. “Her heart beats regularly, if a bit slow,” she murmured, then put her own wrist to Ilona’s forehead. “Normal temperature.” She held her hand near her nose. “Breathing is a little shallow, but regular.”

Carefully, she leaned in and opened one of her eyes. Peering into it for a moment, she did the same with her other eye. “Her eyes seem fine. Has anything noteworthy happened since you cured her and put on the ring?”

“Not really,” Jezzy said.

“She shifted a little yesterday,” Nyx said. “And twice we heard murmuring, like she was having a bad dream. Once the day before yesterday and once the day after we put on the ring, if that has any significance.”

“Hmm.” Hazel laid her hand over the back of Ilona’s own hand, the one with the ring, and closed her eyes. An expression of concentration came onto her face. After a moment she stood back up, her eyes opening. “It’s doing its job, and it still feels intensely powerful.”

“So there’s nothing you can do?” Nyx asked.

“No. Normally I might try a little magic, but in truth I don’t want to interfere with the ring’s own magical properties. Although it looks like the curse has had no lingering effects on her body–whatever you did removed it completely–Black Cough is very serious. I’ve dealt with it before and I know that even if you manage to get your hands on the cure, it’s usually only a two in three chance that it’ll work.”

“Wait, so, it’s not a guarantee–” Nyx began, but Hazel shook her head.

“No, no, it’s okay. I mean...technically nothing’s a guarantee, but if there’s anything in this realm that can cure advanced Black Cough, it’s that ring. I can feel the raw magical energy. It’s just that this kind of sickness puts a heavy toll on the body. She just needs more time. I could be wrong, but I think she’ll wake up soon.”

“I can’t stand this godsdamned waiting,” Nyx growled. Her wings flexed suddenly and knocked over a chair. She sighed heavily. “Sorry.”

“It’ll be okay, Nyx. She’ll be okay,” Fiona murmured.

“I hope so.” Nyx heaved another sigh and walked out of the room abruptly. “I have to do something or I’m going to lose my patience.”

“Wait, don’t fly away,” Victor said, leaning out in the hallway after her. “I want to come with you. There’s something we need to do anyway.”

“Fine,” she said, heading back downstairs.

Victor turned back to face the others. “All right, I should keep this short with how impatient she is. Hazel: thank you for coming, it was good to see you, I’ll catch up with you later.”

“Same. And thanks for having me,” she replied.

He nodded. “Jezzy, Fiona: I love you, I’m going to go help Nyx keep busy.”

“We’ll be here,” Fiona said. “And I love you, too.”

Jezzy smiled. “You know I love you. Go be with her. See how Delphine’s divinations are going.”

He nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Uh…” He paused, considering the situation for a moment, just in case he was forgetting anything.

It had been a busy day.

A busy week.

“We’ll handle things here,” Jezzy said.

He nodded. “All right, thanks.”

Victor headed back downstairs. He still had his pack, his cloak, his gear from traveling down to Hearth Haven to ask Hazel for help. As he moved through the main room he looked around again and found his imagination roaming briefly.

It was easy to envision it full of tables and chairs, and people. People talking, people eating, people finding a place to get in out of the cold and enjoy some company. And, surprisingly, it was easy to envision himself being on the other side of that for once.

The person helping in the kitchen instead of looking into it occasionally while he waited for food or had a bit to drink.

That struck its own chord of anxiety, though.

He wasn’t so much worried about his role in the situation as he was worried about it not working. He’d become invested, emotionally speaking, but more to the point, he’d become invested in Fiona’s emotional investment in her dream.

When they’d talked earlier about the potential for failure, he’d believed what he’d told her: that there were any number of ways to manifest her dream of facilitating communication between village-dwellers and monsters, but…

It was obvious that this was a very big deal to her.

To all of them now.

Victor walked outside and found Nyx pacing back and forth. Well, they had some different priorities.

“What are we doing?” she asked as he came to stand before her.

“Let’s find Delphine,” he replied.

She nodded. “Yeah, okay.”

Without another word, she scooped him up in her arms and shot into the air, wings pumping as she gained dozens and then hundreds of feet.

And then they were sailing through the sky.

The Misty Vixen Newsletter (December 2022)

Time for some updates.

I’ve got a lot on my mind and because I’m still ruminating on it, I’ll keep this update short. I’m having to reevaluate how I’ve been going about things, but I don’t want to really go in-depth with it until January.

So we’ll go with my favorite method of the bullet-point list to get the pertinent information across.

  • In case you missed it, I made a blog post detailing why I needed to step back for a bit and take a break. About two weeks later, I can say that I do feel a bit better. I feel at least well enough to go back to what I’m calling light duty for December.

  • That light duty is: writing Monster Girl Inn III. I doubt it will be finished by the end of the month, but I’m hoping for an early January release. I have it planned out, I have the cover, and I’ve written a few chapters so far. I will begin posting those chapters on Patreon next Monday, ideally moving at about a chapter a day pace Monday - Friday, until completion.

  • Raw III Audio is officially out.

  • A Reminder: A Warm Place audio is launching on December 5th.

  • Monster Girl Inn II Audio is now up for pre-order. It launches December 14th.

  • Haven 2 will be up for pre-order before long.

  • For reasons that I will get into in the next update, I have decided that I will be pulling down Parasexual, by the end of December, and Like A Fine Wine, by the end of February. They will be republished to Smashwords, and also offered for free as Kindle downloads from my site. At present, I have dropped the price of all of them, both the individual titles and the collections, to 99 cents. So if you missed any of them from the last sale, you can grab them for cheap. For the extremely curious who must know now, the short answer of why I’m doing this is the same reason I pulled down the rest of my backlog.

  • Making slow progress on my first horror harem project.

That’s basically it. I’ve got more reflecting to do on things and December has traditionally been the start of a bad time for me anyway, as I’ve got SAD on top of depression/anxiety, so you may see me try a side project or two. Which basically means: I might fire back up my Dragon Age fan fiction or I may start writing and posting new incest erotica.

Anyway, wish me luck, and I hope you all have a good month.

I Need A Break

So I keep going to a really bad place, mentally and emotionally speaking, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I need an actual, real break for a bit, and then do some ‘light duty’ for awhile after.

An apt metaphor for where I’m at right now is: I’m in a car where something’s wrong and it keeps dying every five miles or so, and I keep having to turn it back on. Technically speaking, I can keep going, just restarting it again and again and again, but the progress I make will be torturously slow.

Or, I can have it towed and take the time to figure out WTF is wrong and fix it, and then drive like a normal person.

The most immediate effect of this is that I won’t be writing Raw V next, or this year. I’ve been attempting to make progress on it for weeks now, over a month, and for some reason it just IS NOT HAPPENING. I’ve made a frighteningly low amount of progress.

I’m positive I’ve made this comparison before, but it feels like that scene in Armageddon where they’ve been drilling the asteroid for hours and they’re supposed to be over 200 feet deep, and they reveal they’ve only managed 58 feet.

At some point, I looked at what I had for Raw V, and thought about how long it’s been since I began ‘working’ on it, and then I thought about how long it’s been since my last release, and then I thought about how long it’s been since the last Raw release, and something sort of just broke?

I think it became too much pressure. This is on top of the normal pressure I already feel from feeling like I’m not writing fast enough, or good enough, and realizing a lot of other authors are pulling WAY far ahead of me apparently with ease.

I’m getting off track. So I’m putting Raw V away for now, and I’m sorry for that. It was a really hard decision, because Raw is, by far, my most popular series. But I have to step away from it or I’m going to lose my mind.

Once I feel like I have both hands back on the wheel again, I’m going to take a shot at writing the final Monster Girl Inn novel, mainly because I’d like to get it wrapped up and just have one series to focus on for the moment.

After that I’ll take another break to reassess where I’m at, and then make another serious go at Raw V. I’d really like to wrap up the Raw series before mid-2023.

At the moment, I’m not sure of anything, though.

I’m going to try and figure stuff out.

Big Giveaway/Sale November 3rd - November 7th

Hey, so I’m doing a big, giant, huge giveaway/sale. I figured it was time for one of those.

If you’re missing some of my titles from your library and have been waiting for an opportunity like this, well, now’s the time to grab them!

Every individual title for Parasexual, Like A Fine Wine, Our Own Way, Haven, and A Warm Place are ALL FREE.

The Complete Collections of all these series are also less than 1$ right now. 99 cents to be specific.

Check out the list of easy links below!

PARASEXUAL

LIKE A FINE WINE

OUR OWN WAY

HAVEN

A WARM PLACE

The Misty Vixen Newsletter (November 2022)

First thing’s first, the first Haven audiobook is out!

 
 

October was definitely a bad month. I was hoping to be most of the way done with Raw V at this point, but I am nowhere near that. I’m not completely sure what happened. Mostly it was a combination of: actual responsibilities popped up a little unexpectedly, including a special writing opportunity that I was presented with and decided to take a shot at (that I will talk about later), and also I spent most of this month just tired. Like really tired. I keep just sleeping but like not really? I don’t know, lately it just feels like I sleep, but when I wake up, my body says ‘no that didn’t count’ and I feel like shit the entire day. I’m trying to get it sorted out. And this is on top of my usual levels of depression and anxiety, so…

Yeah, basically I didn’t get much of anything done. Really the biggest thing I managed to do was redesign all my covers because I do like the new look, so…yay.

Anyway, I’m intending to make November more productive. Here’s a list of shit that’s happening.

  • The preorder for the audiobook for RAW III is coming out extremely soon.

  • The preorder for the audiobook for A WARM PLACE 1 will be out sometime this month.

  • I am having a really big sale/giveaway starting November 3rd that will run for five days. So November 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, & 7th. Basically all of the titles from my completed series will be free, and the Complete Collections will be under 1$.

  • I am intending to get through most of Raw V this month, and may theoretically post it before month’s end.

Here’s the more nebulous stuff.

  • The immediate plan remains the same: after finishing Raw V, I’ll write Monster Girl Inn III.

  • I have finally settled on my horror harem title. It was…D: none of the above. A new idea hit me and it’s just working so far. Not sure when it’ll be done but trust me, when it’s getting close I won’t STFU about it.

  • After Monster Girl Inn I still intend to go hard on Raw and just write it until it’s done.

  • There’s been a change of plans with regards to what I’ll do after Raw. Instead of my slice-of-life sci-fi series, I have instead opted to do a full rewrite of Our Own Way. I’ll release a post about that soonish explaining what and why.

  • After Our Own Way I’ll hit the sci-fi slice-of-life. It’s occurred to me that I really should stop alternating titles and just work on a series until it’s done. This will cause some problems for my sanity (namely burnout), but I’ll work on other projects quietly in the background to help with that. I think the most logical solution would be to write whatever the next series is going to be in the background while I work on my primary one, so that once the primary one is done, I’ll have a jump on the new primary series. At present, there’s just too much time passing between releases, and it’s clearly negatively impacting sales.

  • My backlog. It’s available on Smashwords and a few other sites. I imagine the overlap between people who have already read or don’t care about my backlog and the people who are reading this/visit my site are basically a circle. However, sometimes new readers find these posts, so I figured it’s still worth it to mention. I’ll be making a post about it and creating a page dedicated to it. I have also decided that since my titles are no longer on the Kindle, I’ll just offer them as free downloadable Kindle files directly from this site, in case you missed some.

  • I’ll also be putting together another bibliography. I know there exist some fans who want to see EVERYTHING, because I am one of those people. It will include all my works, including stuff I wrote not as Misty Vixen, or at least everything I can remember. Some stuff is lost to time thanks to bad memory and swapping computers. There were definitely a few experiments I have the vaguest recollections of writing, but have since been removed and deleted, and the specifics of which have been scrubbed from my brain.

  • Among the background stuff I’m working on, I’ll try to find time for either fan fiction or incest fiction. I actually added a bit more to my Dragon Age fan fiction (don’t know if anyone remembers that) and I almost brought it back out, but ultimately put it away because it started feeling like a waste of time. Ideas for and about incest fiction still pop to the surface occasionally, but I pretty much always think ‘I want to, but I really need to get to work on finishing up this current novel…’.

That’s about it. If you’ve got any questions, ask away. I’m going to finish up my secret project and then get to work on Raw V.

Horror Harem Update

So doing a horror harem is actually kinda difficult.

For those who have been following along, I’ve made references to wanting to do a horror harem story for years now. The urge to do something with a darker, harder edge has been there for a long time. Maybe even since the beginning.

Although I’ve done a little bit of work here or there in the background, I really didn’t begin seriously working on a horror harem project until this year.

I’ve run into a lot of problems, from just about every angle.

Here’s probably the most immediate, practical problem I’m facing: What should be my first project? I’ve decided to launch a new pen name, since I want some level of division between the cozy comfort I tend to aim for, even in more action-survival stories, and a horror project, but mostly I just want to see what exactly happens when I launch a new name. Supposedly, Amazon favors new names.

But the question becomes, what should be my first impression? Because the first story I write will absolutely be my first impression, and that will, as the saying goes, ‘leave an impression’, whether people realize it or not.

I was hit hard by an idea that was very grim, very miserable. The story basically opens with a suicide, to give you an idea of the tone, and although I still intend on having the comforting parts in between the grimmer parts, (it can’t be all misery all the time), I ultimately backed away from the story because I felt it was too much for a first impression and, more significantly, misrepresentative of the content coming after. Because although future stories under this pen will be horror, this story would probably be as dark as it gets. So if people turned off by this level of misery, but who are still looking for horror harem, get turned away by my initial effort, then they likely won’t give any future efforts a chance, thinking it’ll be more of the same. It goes the other way, too. The people who like it? They’ll probably be let down by the more ‘tame’ series that follow.

That’s just one problem.

What about the cover art? Sexy or scary? Both? How far in either direction? The readership of harem has let me know cover art is EVERYTHING. It’s obvious that some authors absolutely thrive largely because they’re able to drop 2,000$ per cover. I’ve legitimately seen people say “WTF? Why was the story so bad, the cover was so good!” As if the quality of the cover has LITERALLY ANYTHING to do with the ability of the writer.

And then there’s the narrative difficulty. Harem is ultimately a power fantasy. Horror is literally the opposite, a dis-empowerment fantasy. In harem, harem members are never allowed to die or have irreparable harm done to them. In horror, almost everyone dies, usually extremely painfully. Now, I know there’s a way to balance that first problem (a horror harem would be closer to Doom 3 ((yes I finally played it)) than Alien - Isolation or Amnesia - The Dark Descent), and I’m willing to just not kill or torture harem members, but it makes telling the story overall more difficult.

To complicate things even further, it’s become obvious that I’ve been somewhat trying to write my idea of horror harem for a long time now. Some of the ideas I’m coming up with closely resemble Haven or A Warm Place. Basically grim survival in a grim environment. Was Haven horror? Was A Warm Place? Honestly, I can’t say they were. Really, they were more tense than scary. But that’s the kind of story I want to tell: a guy and a group of women fucking, surviving, and fighting monsters. I once joked that if I were going to do a sequel series to A Warm Place, I’d only do it if I got to introduce monsters. Some of the ideas I have closely resemble that, and it’s honestly tempting.

I’d say one of my biggest concerns is people will either say ‘this isn’t really harem’ or ‘this isn’t really horror’. Mostly I’m worried about that second one.

There’s the additional difficulty of trying to find time to do this while also keeping up my works as Misty Vixen, which is already difficult, but that isn’t a new problem.

So…yeah. It’s difficult. That’s the word of the day: difficult.

The first problem I truly need to get past is settling on which one to write. I’ve at least got it narrowed down…sort of.

I’m really tempted to do an idea that would almost go like a video game. To be clear, NOT LitRPG, but almost like a survival-horror or FPS-horror. Something like, a guy deep in a top secret research facility survives an experiment gone wrong and finds survivors (see: hot babes) and tries to escape and survive. So basically like Doom 3 or Half-Life but with a harem.

Another idea that hit me is, how best to explain this…basically a spiritual successor to The Pale Redhead, but as a small harem, in a world that’s a combination of Haven and A Warm Place. That one is also tempting.

I’m also really tempted by a fantasy horror harem. Basically, a lone warrior trying to protect a small refugee camp in the midst of an undead invasion.

And of course there’s my modern day survival-horror harem. Basically, suddenly there’s monsters everywhere and one guy and some hot chicks he finds have to survive in a small, overrun town.

Maybe ‘narrowed down’ isn’t the right phrase.

I have other ideas, as I’ve said I’ve put aside the big space survival-horror thing for now, but those are the contenders.

So yeah, that’s basically the state of things.

The Misty Vixen Newsletter (October 2022)

Monster Girl Inn II is out!

 
 
 
 

And we are very close to the audiobook release of Monster Girl Inn! It comes out on October 3rd.

From what I understand, the pre-order for the first Haven audiobook isn’t too far away.

This update will be pretty short. I’m tired. September extracted a heavy toll. I had what you might call a setback in my mental health. The only good thing about it is that I think my emotional stability has improved because it didn’t take me too long to get back to roughly normal after. But that’s why Monster Girl Inn II was a little late. The setback but also insomnia and just generally feeling worn down. I’m fucking tired.

I’m going to take a break, and then begin work on Raw V. Already got the cover for it, so that’s squared away. (I still look back in horror on the original cover situation. Let me tell you, bumping up against a finished novel with no cover art in sight is particularly miserable for an indie author). Given my current pace, I’ll likely get Raw V out sometime in early November.

After that, I’m thinking Monster Girl Inn III might be my last book for 2022. I’ve been needing, like, a real break for awhile now, and I know that this need will likely double or even triple in intensity once winter sets in.

I’ve been thinking about background projects still, something to work on more for fun and sanity’s sake, and although I keep messing around with horror ideas, I’ve run into some problems there. I want to make an actual blog post about the horror harem situation, because it’s surprisingly complicated for something that was supposed to be just a side project, and I’ll update this post once I write it. [UPDATE: Here is the post]. Should be a few days out. But I may actually take another shot at quietly producing some incest erotica. I might end up writing Kyra’s Game 2, or something else. I’ve got a lot of ideas.

Anyway, hope you enjoy Monster Girl Inn II.

The only other thing I have to say is that you might have noticed a small design change in the Monster Girl Inn covers. I’ve noticed that some of the bigger names in harem have taken to making their name small and tucked away in one corner. I’ve decided to take a shot at this new trend to see if it actually helps, but in truth, I may actually make the change to a few other series because the design really appeals to me on a personal level. It’s a clean, minimalist aesthetic, and that just does it for me. Like, I already really love the way the new MGI covers look. I dunno, we’ll see.

Let me know what you think.

Monster Girl Inn II Preview

Monster Girl Inn II is underway and I’m hoping to have it out by the end of this month.

First chapter can be read below. First and second chapter are available to my 1$/month Patrons and above, right here.

Early access chapters to begin posting tomorrow.

“You know, I always heard that horses were supposed to be scared of demons,” Victor said as he finished tying the horse to the wagon.

“That’s just a story idiots like to pass around,” Jezzy said, smiling as she pet the horse that he had gone into town to rent.

She made a happy sound and shifted in place.

Jezzy giggled. “See? She likes me. She knows I’m nice.”

“We ‘monsters’, even succubi from another realm, tend to be more in tune with nature, which includes animals of all kinds,” Fiona said. She set her load into the back of the cart and proceeded to tie it down.

“Well, not all succubi,” Jezzy said. “One girl I knew was just terrified of birds. She was utterly convinced they were watching her. Planning something. I was so nervous when I first saw birds, because I’d only ever heard what she had to say about them. But they’re just...birds.”

“They don’t really have a plan beyond ‘eat’ and ‘sleep’,” Victor agreed as he finished up.

Fiona slithered up behind him. “And ‘mate’,” she murmured in his ear, wrapping her arms around him. She slowly slipped a hand down the front of his pants.

He exhaled sharply, feeling her large, bare breasts pressing against his back. “Yes...that too,” he managed.

“You’re getting bolder,” Jezzy grinned. She stepped away from the horse and up to him, and now he was surrounded by them. She settled her hands on his hips, grinning fiercely as she stared down at him with her glowing pink eyes.

“You both are...so tall,” Victor murmured.

“I love how much you like that about us,” Jezzy replied. “Can I tempt you to take a break? Do naughty things behind that tree over there?’

“You can but you shouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re sending me in there to try and talk Hazel into some fun and I’d rather save it for the potential foursome or threesome, depending on how much Fiona wants to watch,” he replied.

“I won’t know until we’re actually in the moment,” Fiona murmured. She sighed and took her hand out of his pants. “And that’s fair enough.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” Jezzy said. She gave him a kiss, then stepped back. “I like this horse, but it’s too bad we had to spend so much coin on it…”

“We had to,” he replied, “we can’t very well have you hauling this into town. People would lose their minds. Now, I should really get to work selling this stuff off. The sooner I get to it, the sooner I’ll be back. Hopefully with Hazel.”

“Unless there’s some kind of emergency, I imagine she will come back with you once she knows I’m back around,” Jezzy replied.

“I hope so.” He kissed them both and then hopped up onto the cart.

Getting settled, he began guiding the horse and they started the slow roll into the township proper. He took the opportunity to just relax for a little bit. That was what yesterday was supposed to have been: relaxation.

Only it hadn’t.

Not that he was complaining, exactly.

After the long day of getting everything back from the abandoned mine, the four of them had decided to just take it easy for a bit. But when all four people involved in ‘taking it easy’ were horny, and one of them was a succubus, there tended to be a lot of sex happening. And what was supposed to be a day of rest had turned into a lot of exciting lovemaking.

Victor yawned and rubbed at his eyes as he tried to rouse himself.

Velena had finally parted ways with them last night. Fiona said she tended to get flighty after spending too much time in one place, and sure enough, she’d sort of just left after a quick and abrupt goodbye.

Fiona had told him not to take it personally, and in truth he could respect the feeling.

Victor reached into his pocket and checked that the parchment was still there. It was. They had actually done the responsible thing after she’d left and made a complete list of everything they needed to finish repairing the inn.

Tools, nails, lumber, doors, windows, furniture, and a bunch of other odds and ends.

He was pretty confident they wouldn’t get it all. In truth, they’d be lucky to get half of it, even with the haul from the mine, but it would be another big step forward and they weren’t exactly in a rush to get this done.

As the Hinterland drifted by to either side of him, he found his thoughts drifting. Today was the first day he’d had of alone time in what felt like a while. And now that he was by himself and relatively safe, he could think more on where his life had taken him.

It had brought him to strange places over the years.

Mostly good places, some really, really bad places. At times he felt like he was leading his own life, but at others he felt like he was as helpless to control the course of his existence as a shipwreck victim clinging desperately to a piece of driftwood in a storm.

Victor had gone a lot of places, seen a great deal, had many adventures, but he never really thought he’d end up in the Hinterlands, romantically involved with not one, but two monster girls, repairing an old inn.

Unlikely didn’t seem like a strong enough word to describe the situation.

This, however unlikely it seemed, felt different than every other adventure he’d found himself in over the years.

An adventurer’s life was, by default, a wanderer’s life.

But there was an extra layer of intensity to that fact when the adventurer had no home to return to. Victor had actually encountered many adventurers who intended to return to their home village and settle back down some day. And even some who did return and stay for a season out of the year. There were some who intended to adventure until they died, but they were rare.

It always seemed to him that the adventurers who had no home to return to were of that last variety, but he supposed it was possible that he had simply met those adventurers and spoken with them at a point before they did eventually settle down.

Was that what he intended to do here?

Could he live out his days in an inn situated in the Hinter?

The fact that he didn’t immediately think no was giving him a bit of anxiety, and he couldn’t even figure out why.

Was it because he had grown so used to the idea that, eventually, he would move on?

It could be that simple, but he somehow doubted that it was.

As Hearth Haven came into view, Victor pushed the thoughts from his head. For the moment, he had a very long stretch of bargaining, negotiating and, perhaps, intimidating in front of him, depending on how much the merchants thought they could take advantage of him. He wasn’t really prone to that last one, but…

He wasn’t above it.

He needed a clear head for this next part, Fiona and Jezzy were relying on him.

…

Victor reined in his temper. “No,” he repeated, “I don’t want that one. Just these.”

“Are you sure?” the shopkeeper asked again.

“I’m completely, absolutely sure. And I promise, if I ever want that window, I will march promptly back to this store and purchase it.”

“Well, if you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

“All right. Well, it’s two hundred fifty coins even for the rest,” the shopkeeper said.

Victor nodded and dropped two of his one hundred coin pouches, his final two, in fact, and a fifty coin pouch on the counter between them. The merchant picked each up and weighed them in his hand, then peered inside, then made it all disappear behind the counter.

“Thanks for the business,” he said.

“Yep,” Victor replied, and picked up the first of the five windows he’d purchased. He had wanted more, but this was the last of his coin for now.

He began shifting them out to the cart.

The journey through town had lasted longer than he’d feared. It had been a complicated route along the cobblestone roads, making a stop at each of the varied places he needed to visit, to both sell and buy. Given he wasn’t as familiar with the town yet, it was a bit stop and start as he just went to the stores as he saw them.

And just about all of the merchants had been difficult in one way or another.

Given how much experience they all no doubt had with adventurers coming through, each had honed their skills to a fine art, able to extract much and give little in return. Victor had his own methods for dealing with their tactics, but at this point he was just getting sick of it. He wasn’t even thirty yet, but inside these stores he began to feel like a grumpy old man.

Victor noted that now that the shopkeeper had his coin, the man made no move to help load the leather-wrapped windows into the cart. Not that he particularly wanted help at this point, if he had one more poor interaction he was liable to do something regrettable, but it was just one more irritating thing on a long list of them.

Finally, he got the last window in and secured.

Before anything else could annoy him, Victor got up into the seat and set the horse towards Hazel’s place. He glanced skywards. The sun was a few hours past its highest point. He relaxed a little. Despite how long it had taken, there was still more than enough time to talk with Hazel, get out of the town, return the horse, and then get to the inn and relax.

And maybe do other things.

A few moments later, he brought the cart to a halt and put the horse in the shade. Walking in through the front door into the darkened shop, he felt a strange sensation. Not of anything magical, but of the passage of time.

With all that had happened, it felt like he’d been here last season, not last week.

“Well, look who’s back.”

Hazel was again standing behind the counter, this time working on a potion. She had a little cluster of small glass containers, each filled with a different kind of liquid, centered around one glass vial held upright.

“I missed you,” he replied, walking slowly closer, not wanting to mess up her work.

But she seemed a pro at it, able to continue on with the work and conversation and other distractions at the same time.

“Did you now?” she murmured, pouring some glowing blue liquid into the vial.

“Very much so.”

She laughed softly. “Took you long enough.”

“I was, uh, busy out there.”

“Oh were you now?” She picked up another glass bottle with a murky green liquid and swirled it around, then paused and sniffed. She looked up at him with her glowing eyes and a broader grin spread slowly across her beautiful face. “You found a girl with horns out there.”

“And a tail,” he replied. “Two girls with tails, actually.”

“Oh my.” She focused on the potion again. “One moment.” She carefully poured five drops of the green liquid into it, then began corking everything. “Care to share the details?”

“Well, there was a lot of fucking,” Victor replied.

“I figured as much.” She leaned down, putting the containers under the counter.

She was wearing an especially revealing shirt, and her pale breasts seemed to threaten to tumble out each time she leaned down.

“I found Jezzy,” he said.

She laughed. “Knew it! Knew that girl would find you. I was hoping she was back...hmm. Who is the other girl with a tail? Another succubus?”

“No, a viper named Fiona.”

“Oh my. Most men would admit to making love with a succubus, but I knew few men who would seek out a viper...fewer still who would openly admit to being intimate with one.” She picked up the vial and swirled it around gently a few times, then corked it and placed it under the counter. Hazel fixed him with a confident smile and an intense stare. “But I knew there was something special about you as soon as you walked in here...I’ve never met Fiona, but I do know of her. Jezzy has told me. She sounds sweet.”

“She really is,” he replied.

“Oh.” Hazel gave him a more appraising stare.

“What?”

“I’ve heard that tone before. You...are something truly special, aren’t you?”

He laughed awkwardly. “I...don’t know. Am I?”

“You traveled here from who knows how far away to fuck monster girls. Rare, but not unheard of,” she replied.

“How did you know, by the way?”

“I guessed. Just a strong feeling. But,” she continued, “I have come across almost no one who is willing to have a romantic relationship with monster girls. It’s difficult enough for most to contemplate building a life and sharing a home with a different race, but a village-dweller and a forest-dweller? Almost never.”

“Really? That rare?” he asked.

“Yes. I spent a lot of time traveling the land. Occasionally I still do. As a witch, I’m more accepted among the forest-dwellers. And yes, they tend to stay on their sides of the line.” She regained that smile. “Have you been with anyone else?”

“A harpy.”

“Oh my.”

“And a gekon adventuress.”

“You get around.”

“Apparently,” he replied.

“So, is that why you’re here?” she asked, putting her hands on her pleasantly sized hips.

“Yeah. I was hoping to get around to you. Jezzy said you can’t stay away from her and you’d do anything to be with her again, so I should use that as a lure to get you to come spend time with us out in the Hinter,” he said.

“Oh that pink bitch,” Hazel muttered, rolling her eyes. “She thinks she’s so great.”

“...she is,” Victor said. “Having been with her now, I feel like I can safely confirm that.”

Hazel laughed. “Yeah, but she’s still annoying!”

“Because she’s right?”

“Not as right as she thinks...but yes, I do want to get back with her. And I must say that the idea of taking you and her to bed at the same time is exceptionally appealing to me.” She looked around her shop. “Okay, go on and wait for me. I’ll wrap everything up here and then I will join you for some fun in the woods.”

“Very glad to hear that,” he said, heading for the exit.

This was going to be a really good night.

The Misty Vixen Newsletter (September 2022)

First thing’s first:

 
 

RAW IV is out and the pre-order for Raw II audiobook is also out! It drops September 8th.

At the moment, the other audiobooks are still being worked on behind the scenes. It’s looking like the audiobook for Monster Girl Inn is up next, the pre-order coming out this month. For the most immediate information on them as it becomes available, follow my Twitter.

I’ve officially begun working on Monster Girl Inn II. I’m going to start posting it as Early Access to my Patreon next week. At the moment it’s looking like a mid-to-late September release. The cover is done and it has a sexy dragoness on it.

At the moment, the only things that remain a certainty for me are that I am going to finish out the Monster Girl Inn trilogy this year, and that I intend to write at least two more Raw novels this year. And even that is a hope, as it means one book per month. I’m better now than I was before, mentally speaking, but I feel like I’m on unstable ground. The way ahead looks safe, but it could collapse out from under me at any moment, completely derailing my plans for at least a short period of time as I try to get back onto solid ground.

The only good news is that the collapses are less frequent.

Earlier, I said that I was going to try and switch back to working on two projects simultaneously. This has not gone as well as I had hoped, as it remains difficult enough as it is to hold onto a single project, let alone two. I’m holding out hope that this is still possible as I regain mental ground, as I’ve been able to make this work before.

Besides Raw and Monster Girl Inn, I believe I have zeroed in on my next project after MGI is wrapped up. Earlier I mentioned a sci-fi slice-of-life idea that had just sort of come to me. It’s stuck around and grown stronger since then, and I’m going to initiate it after MGI. I feel like it will have a stronger voice than MGI, which will make it easier to write. I’m not sure if that makes sense to readers, but it’s the best way I can put it. Not sure how long it will be, but probably on the shorter side in terms of number of books. I’m going to try experimenting with longer novels again, like with A Warm Place.

As for the rest of it? I’ve found myself pulling away from the outer space horror harem as it has grown in complexity and scope, and drawn towards a simpler, more grounded and modern narrative. A few years ago I began talking about a horror harem, Eyes in the Dark, and the idea has never fully left me. I may end up going with that one to launch the horror harem pen name, and do the outer space narrative later. We’ll see what happens.