Progress and story ideas.

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Hello everyone,

I hoped I would be more active the last two weeks. As always life gets in the way. Or to be more specific books and stories of authors.
My progress is already slow as I usually only write on my daily commute (by train mind you). That time is contested by books to read and the last two weeks they have won. Which I don't mind as they are a great way to inspire yourself.

For those who are curious, the books I am reading are from the "The School for good and evil" series by Soman Chainani. I also spend a lot of time reading short stories by dkfenger (https://dkfenger.deviantart.com/gallery/). An author specialized in TF stories that occasionally feature TG as well.

So now that I talked about what hindered my own progress let me tell you how far I am in my current projects.
The rewriting of "Strange Attraction" is nearly done. A sci-fi short about a pilot who thinks she can handle working for a succubus. I currently try to add some small details based on feedback from beta readers. Then the story will finally land on TBC.
"Last Regrets" (in my "undesirable classes" universe) is still stuck in the next to last chapter. Right in the middle of a sex scene. One of my biggest enemies. Damn you sexy time! However, I do plan to push ahead there soon.
There is also "The Lokian Way". The serial I wanted to start posting here on TBC. Most of my writing time I spend here. The closer I come to post a story the more nervously I fiddle around with it. Still, I think this weekend part one will land on TBC.
There also was some progress on various other stories. About 10k words written scattered about a half dozen unfinished stories.

With progress update done it is time for another thing I mentioned in my first blog entry: the story ideas.
Each blog entry I want to write down four or five story ideas I had in the past and gather feedback. So I might know what you guys and gals want to read. Think of them as a short synopsis on the back of a book. Which one would you pick up to read based on those few sentences? So please comment freely. Keep in mind that the first ones are some of my oldest ideas and maybe not as mature as my later ideas. I also don't mind if someone else wants to take a knack on any of these. Just please send me a courtesy PM in that case.
Without much further delay here are the first ones:

1. A New Hobby
A guy collects trades, skills, and hobbies. By now he has gone through a lot. As he slowly runs out of ideas what he might learn next he starts a "piggy-bank of ideas". One filled by his friends. Once he is done learning a skill or hobby he picks a new one out of said piggy-bank at random. Though the last draw poses an unexpected challenge. Who of his friends put "Disguise as a convincing woman" into it anyways and will he get through with it? After all his parents raised no quitter.

2. In the wrong body at the wrong time
The main character is one of a few who can bodyswap with other people. He uses it in his current job. He temporarily uses his gift to swap with other men who undergo surgeries. However, his last client is not a man. Despite his insistence that he only switches with males his agent pushed him to take on a female one. The offered money had been just too much to reject it. Waking up from the surgery he is informed by a police officer that there had been a murder. His client is dead along with his original body. It had been a mob hit. Now he fears for his life as maybe the mafia wants back what they put into his client's body. His new female ones.

3. Pearls of wisdom
A teenager (male) stumbles upon a case of pearls in a magic shop. The owner is surprised as the case usually chooses a woman as its bearer. He explains that each pearl contains wisdom and knowledge of a previous bearer and their lives. The owner only rents out the case and always for ten years. Once returned the case would have one more pearl, with the wisdom of the last bearer. After some convincing, the teenager takes the case home and proceeds to test each pearl for a week. While each pearl he tackles challenges in his life a different way, but he also notices a side effect. Slowly the pearls change his body to match the previous bearers of the case. All of them girls. With new challenges on the horizon can he tackle them without relapsing and using the pearls?

4. Wings of change
High up in the skies is the small flying aircraft-carrier of a mercenary unit. On the return flight from a mission to their usual home port, they notice a small aircraft chased by bandits. The mercenaries decide to help. Just in time, they rescue a beautiful girl, the pilot of the busted aircraft. She explains she is a newly born goddess on the run. She is still weak in her godly powers, but she says if the mercenary unit fulfills some challenges in her name her power might grow. Power she would use for them. They agree. A goddess on their side just too tempting. But they fail to ask just what kind of goddess she might be and if she has some kind of hidden agenda.

5 HR's offer
Young male researchers in a prestigious company are offered a special option. If they help the company to achieve the mandatory women's employment rate - issued by the government - by going through a new process making them women they would receive a bonus and a promotion. However, the offer is a ruse. The employment rate already fulfilled. The company found out that one of the side effects of the process is heightened intelligence. They want to exploit this to their max. As more and more volunteer go through the process other side effects eventually surface.

Comments

Great Ideas

Daphne Xu's picture

... and potentially great stories. A suggestion about Idea 5: have the company be honest and above-board about what it's doing. Treat it as a clinical trial, and provide enough documentation for subjects to keep and maintain their affairs and documents.

Idea 3: some of the Pearls of Wisdom might (again) show how to maintain one's affairs and documents, etc.

(You can see one issue that bugs the daylights out of me under certain circumstances.)

-- Daphne Xu

4 and 5...

...are the two I'd be most likely to read.

The fact that you're listing #4 on a TG story site certainly suggests a few possibilities...

#5 Daphne's way could be an interesting story, but probably very different from yours. Seems inevitable in your version that the newly empowered new women will end up adversarial to the company. Daphne's version makes them allies and partners in discovery, so to speak. (But then the conflict would have to come from elsewhere, unless the process affects some of them negatively.)

Eric