The Fictional Newsletter — 1/28/2025
What's new and what's already waiting for you
What did I do this week in writing, and better yet, what should I be doing? When you have a bunch of WIPs in progress, it’s hard to keep up with everything. I’ve started a calendar on a notepad now just to stay on schedule with what I want to do. That includes when I write this newsletter, what episodes and chapters I’m writing in my various WIPs, and what and when I’ll post during the week on this publication, as well as on The Fictional: After Dark.
Last week’s newsletter, the first of the year, was all about all the WIPs I have going on. I’m republishing Dorothy: Locked & Loaded on my website and posting some of it here to keep things interesting — let people know that there’s a massive story unfolding for them if they want to take advantage of it. Two years worth of writing is easily novel-length with multiple characters. There are 20 episodes on the site as I’m writing this, but I plan to add another 4-5 tonight as I watch the Bills-Chiefs game. And just below, you can find an audio snippet from Part 20, called “A Taste of Bones.”
The thing about D:L&L is that it has so many flavors from character to character.
Dot is cautious but upbeat, trusting but ready to take on the challenge.
The Scarecrow is struggling with his endless life and the misery that has engulfed him since he lost his throne.
The Tin Man is a broken, heartless shell, having had his heart ripped out by a lover — figuratively, if not literally.
The Lion has prospered, but his narcissism and pride make him a terror in the Emerald City.
Glinda, who we knew as the Good Witch — well, she’s twisted and dark, erotic and exotic, and she’s got a plan for Oz that no one is ready for.
Moreover, there are a dozen other side characters, some of whom you’ll see once and others who will return for a while or play a more significant role. Turlo is one — a flying monkey. There’s Fly-By Jones, a runner at Shiz University, and of course, Oli Phant Cobb, the engineer who drives the Yellow Brick Express. Usling, who you can hear above, is a crone living in the depths of Kiamo Ko. And Turnbuckle is a little mechanical man, one of thousands who make up Glinda’s TikTok Army. All of these are new characters that we made up along the way to tell a larger story, and most of them come up within the “Narrator” episodes that I wrote, giving other writers the main characters.
There’s a lot of fun in these episodes, but there is some darkness and a little bit of everything in between. And that was the point — find a bunch of writers, give them a role, and turn them loose. There was only one rule — don’t fuck with someone else’s character. And I think it went pretty well.
So, keep an ear out for more audio, an eye out for more episodes here, but the main stash will be on SJ Stone, Author — 150 total episodes rolling out all year long.
Sesame Swallow, Private Investigator
I’ve got three different Sesame projects in the works right now, and I flit from project to project as I complete a part. For the original novel, which I first wrote nearly ten years ago and am going through the umpteenth rewrite, I just finished Chapter 7.
In Sesame Swallow, Private Investigator, her debut novel, and the first of ten I have planned, our heroine gets her origin story. From not-so-mild and mannered court researcher, our heroine gets her first big break — hired to find a missing person, none other than social media starlet Goldie Rains, a Baltimore-based porn princess whose father is a local businessman running for state senate.
I started writing Sesame for National Novel Writing Month on a whim with only a first line in mind, a line that didn’t survive the transition of a few rewrites. Now, she’s easily my favorite character to write, a smart, spunky 26-year-old who’s looking to make a name for herself. She’s curious about life, and that’s going to get her into trouble in a lot of ways — some not-so-bad trouble and some trouble no one wants.
I like to say she’s six parts Nancy Drew, one part Charlie’s Angels, and three parts Californication, but depending on the novel, that recipe may change a bit.
Sesame Swallow Mini-Mysteries
Staying with Sesame, there are two other main stories I’m working on — Sesame Swallow and the Missing Key and Sip, Swallow & Scream. Both are short serials (ten episodes or less) that I’ll publish this year on Substack.
Missing Key is an erotic mystery that finds Sesame in enjoyable trouble. This is the second erotic mystery serial I’ve written in which Sesame finds herself in the middle of both a sexy romp and some mystery to be solved. I won’t deny that my own erotica writing inspired me, but when I also happened upon the Nancy Templeton erotic comics, I couldn’t resist. Nancy is not nearly as together or intelligent as Sesame. Still, she’s a fun read, and it’s been a pretty solid challenge to create a legitimate mystery story while adding in erotic elements that feel organic.
The story itself surrounds a family that runs the largest whiskey distillery company on the East Coast, the family succession and the death of the patriarch before he can reveal which family member will take full control. Sesame, in her normal day job role as a court researcher and legal assistant to a friend of the victim, just so happens to be there on that very weekend. And while the police wait for the autopsy, Baltimore’s sexiest sleuth, well, goes into action.
Sip, Swallow & Scream is a Halloween-themed serial that also features a murder. Sesame and her posse, which we’ll get to know intimately in her novels, head off in late October to a sleepy little village in Pennsylvania, where the town of Ravenwood celebrates Halloween all year long. This is a paranormal mystery with an Edgar Allan Poe-theme, which is cool because I just went to a Poe-themed show this weekend. And Poe, of course, is a fixture of Baltimore, where Sesame and I both live.
A handful of people are in town to validate and bid on a rare Poe manuscript discovered by a local bookseller, who turns up dead, the manuscript missing, leaving our heroine and her friends to work out the identify of the killer and the location of the manuscript with the help of a ghost.
Stay tuned for more. There’s always more. And thanks for reading!
