Writing in 2024
Like most things I do in writing, I can only plan so much. I’m a pantser. I thrive in chaos. Did I plan on doing XYZ? Sure, but A, J and P rolled into town, and I couldn’t say “no”. They needed me. They begged, they pleaded, they moaned and cried and would not let go. So, XYZ may be a little delayed and may have to wait five minutes or five weeks. Shit happens. I love my chaos, and that’s where I live.
That said, I do have some plans, and I always do what I say I’m going to do, so in the middle of all this A, J and P insanity, I’m still going to knock some basics out of the park in 2024. So, let’s get right down to it.
Sesame Swallow, Private Investigator, my favorite main character and the star of what will ultimately be ten novels, will make her debut. I’ve had a few false starts accompanied by a few rewrites, and there’s a little more work to be done, but this is the year to hammer it all out and hit “publish”.
Sesame has been part of my life for about ten years now, but more so in the last five or so years, during which I’ve written four Sesame Swallow mystery novels and about a third of another. In her first adventure, our heroine finally lands her first real case on her road to becoming a private investigator. I first wrote the novel as a wild NaNoWriMo erotic mystery just to see what kind of wild, sexy fun I could have with it, but the character grew on me, and now I have a long list of adventures lined up for her. I just need to get her on a path to publishing, and then the other stories will flow.
Sesame Swallow is five parts Nancy Drew, three parts Charlie’s Angels and two parts Californication. If you get those references, you know what to expect — a determined young woman on thrilling adventures, engaging in silly, sexy antics and solving a host of mysteries that just seem to find her.
There’s also more of Sesame, as I mentioned in “Writing in 2023” — besides novels, Sesame has her own website with more content there. Check out NoMysteryInc.com, which is the name of the private investigation agency she starts at the end of book 2, Sesame Swallow and the Case of the Missing Heart. She’s got an Instagram account, which will be coming on strong in 2024, and she’s got multiple boards Instagram account, which will be coming on strong in 2024, and she’s got multiple boards on Pinterest, where I store a lot of images I find (or create on Midjourney) that lend themselves to novel scenes and characters.
But, on top of her novels, Sesame is busy with multiple other smaller projects, including mini-mysteries, the first of which was just published on Medium and Substack — look for SS’s Christmas Caper in either place. And if that’s not enough, I’m pushing into the erotic mystery side of things with her. Her first erotic mini-mystery is already out — The Case of the Hypnotized Hon, in which Sesame and her friends go to Vegas for a girl’s weekend, and Sesame gets into some trouble. This latter bit is part of a project I call Swallow: After Dark, and I’ve already started on the second erotic mini.
With only five episodes left to finish up with this noir fiction serial, Just Right is still going. A few things tripped me up in 2023; otherwise, we’d be all done with this tragic tale of lust and betrayal. This month, January ’24, we’ll wrap this up with a bow for a total of 35 episodes. Currently, this serial fiction is available on Medium in total, and as of now, the first ten episodes are available on my website, SJStoneAuthor.com.
I hope you enjoy or have enjoyed our four characters as they wind their way through the aftermath of a brutal murder in an alley behind a Lower East Side cabaret in NYC. Twists and turns, backstories, and a long night of unraveling whodunnit awaits you. The first main character just died last week!
Moving forward, I’ve decided I want to get back into short stories, so I’m going to flex my wings and try something new, wild,and weird. Instructions for Strange Desires is a collection of short stories planned for 2024 that leaves the mundane world behind — think fantastical worlds, odd scenarios, erotic encounters, and the most bizarre scenarios imaginable as unsuspecting tourists of worlds upon worlds encounter a sinister, sentient tome that sucks them into its pages and pits them against all manner of terrors, trials and temptations.
It all comes together towards the end, as the characters realize they’re not story characters after all, but real people trapped in a maze of wonder. How will they escape? And will they even want to?
Stay tuned on Medium and Substack, as well as my website!
Now, here’s a horse of a different color and something that I realized is finally a thing I can do, something I’ve wanted to do — write a play!
In The Night We Buried Our Last Fuck, a one-act play, three women have been meeting for months over coffee to discuss all the ways they’d love to kill a man named Joe Bones, an aging has-been rock star who dated and cheated on each of them. It’s all jokes, scones and lattes until Joe is found brutally murdered.
I have all the details worked out; it’s just a matter of writing the play. I also want to write a musical, but that will have to wait. But heck, if I can do this, then I already have a friend who could help me write the songs I need, so let’s look at 2025. I’m already trying to do too much shit in 2024.
And if that’s not enough, well, I’m going to get back to writing erotica. I wrote a short 6–8 episode serial called F.U.C.K back in 2023, and since then, I’ve realized there’s a lot more to the story. I called that bit Season One, but since then, I’ve planned out seasons 2–5 in my head.
I’ve also got a bunch of stories in various stages of development, from just ideas to several episodes, including Space Sluts, a wild sci-fi epic that’s more of an erotic love story with insane starships and space monsters; plus, What She Wanted, The Too True Tale of Mistress Taylor’s Tawdry Tumble, and something I think will be a lot of fun, Adventures of a Wedding Crasher.
We’ll see, but between the above-mentioned erotica, Swallow: After Dark, erotic shorts in Strange Desires (above), and erotica outtakes from my Sesame Swallow novels that are more Director’s Cut rather than Theater Cut (if you know what I mean), there will be a host of erotica stories in 2024. And just FYI, Miss Taken, Trapped and a few other tales from 2023 are on Substack now under the heading Red Brick Road.
So, I guess that’s it — because any more would get someone calling a Helpline for me, and I might end up in a straightjacket. That seems like enough writing projects for a year, right? I mean, why not? Aim for the sky and do all the things. There’s not going to be a warp drive in my lifetime, so might as well take all the trips to other worlds like this.
Care to come with? I think it’s going to be fun.
