Now that the world is a lot less bleak I can once again trust myself to come here and not be disruptive. At least, no more disruptive than I've been in past years.

About ten weeks ago, I allowed Doppler Press to publish what I believe is my thirtieth published book, Contested Behavior.

It has had a nice reception on Amazon. It rose to 13th in its genre and now sits at 52nd.

What it hasn't had is many comments. As of today it has a 4.8 rating on Amazon.

waits for no man.

I went and Googled myself today. Of course some AI had to stick its nose in, and made this audacious claim:

Iolanthe Portmanteaux is a pen name used by a prominent author of fiction on BigCloset TopShelf, a popular community site and archive hosting transgender, gender-fluid, and gender-variant web fiction.

It made me laugh. Shows what AI knows, eh? "Prominent author?" Ha! Just imagine if anyone was foolish enough to believe it!

Hold my beer while I prove them wrong!

Does anyone know if there's an easy way to check for new comments to the older stories I've posted? I usually click on the My Stories link in the Navigation area on the right side of the website, then scroll through my stories to look for any new comments. I'd tried clicking on the Total /New column heading in that list, but I'm not sure if sorts the stories by the total number of comments, or if it brings the new comments to the top of the list.

I notice that a few (not most) of my blog articles are listed among my stories on my "author page".

Is there any way to remove them from my author page?

I've just published chapter 1 of Vernon Farm and, given there's 14 chapters, this will take a few months! This is the full novel release.

That's book 16. Books 17, 18 and 19 are already out on Kindle. Book 20 is in production.

Addendum - I have added a Character Index directly from the book so it includes spoilers!

Hi everyone!

We've been working on some internal changes to BigCloset TopShelf, and we're currently testing a few updates intended to improve the site's reliability and overall performance.

One of the issues we're specifically addressing is the infamous "phantom logout" problem, where the site appears to randomly log you out, or acts like you're logged out even though your session should still be active.

IMPORTANT: Please Log Out and Log Back In!

As part of these changes, we've made adjustments to how the site handles login sessions.

Today I'll be posting a solo and will be off the site for a little while. I'm having a cataract operation on Wednesday and don't know when I'll be able to write again. This year has been a bit of a trial, and I've had a hard time concentrating on writing. I have two short serials that should finish off the rest of the year and hope to have something to post when '27 arrives. Thank you for reading my stories and making nice comments.

Marianne.

In the short time I have read stories of many gifted authors on BCTS. Among them those who are raw and blooming like a flower opening, I have also noticed many who stopped writing, posting, blogging, knowing circumstances, hardship, emotional changes, health, and sadly, the end of life has intervened. I and so many others have been blessed to have all these people, and their alternate life, cross our own life even if only distantly.

saw a respiratory specialist yesterday - basically they are trying to see how much my lung issues this year are playing a role in the fact my pulse wont slow down.

While we were talking, I gave her some details on my childhood, and she gave me The Look - the one that says "how the heck did you survive?"

When I get that question, I just shrug and say something like "just stubborn"

What is BCTS worth to us?

I'm FINALLY back on track with writing. Here's Ch.7 of The World According To Coop.

https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/112133/world-accordin...

I've been busy, as retirement now allows a lot of time for writing. I am, at the moment, juggling three stories, 'Perspective', 'In The Green' and 'Routes'. They are involving to write, and it is amusing when I have to pause and think, "No, that was Ellie, not Jen", and so forth.

The thing is that I have been writing 'Routes; as a serial, but the narrative arc is coming to an end. In simple terms, I have the plot resolved, and the story will end soon. I am planning to issue it as a novel, with 'Freedom' attached, so as to nring a close to Neil Strachan's story.

I'm reading a library book called THE BIRD KING by G. Willow Wilson. At one point the narrator, a slave concubine to the last sultan of Granada, discussing how others treat her says:" they treat me with caution. I might be carrying the sultans child..........Or the sultan might sell me tomorrow, in which case I'm not important at all"......
"He wouldn't really sell you, surely"
"No, he wouldn't. but he could"

For the first time, I think I really understood a real historical figure: Sally Hemmings.

PS The rest of the book as interesting, too.

I don't think this has ever happened before! We have three new authors in one day!

AndieB, EvieEve897 and Hairotica!

Hip Hip Hooray for BigCloset!

Hugs,
Erin

Hi All,

Been a while again. I've had a very busy time since I last posted in February 2024. As I wrote then, I started coming out to my family and friends in 2018, and began my transition in 2020. I've since had top surgery, and this Tuesday, I will celebrate one year post-op from bottom surgery. Needless to say, this has kept me very busy.

With another apology

The first draft of my next novella Inheritance is done and I've started on the artwork. I'm using a slightly different artwork style for this, inspired by Robert McGinnis. I've also put together a caption for this week as a sort of preview of the novella.

I relaunched the polls for the next novella and for transformation fiction themes earlier this week, with new options in each, including a new story idea, Custody. Those polls expire at 12 AM PT, so please get your votes in! Anyone can participate. There's also a poll for the next bonus chapter.

It's done. Plot Twist in Paradise is officially finished!

I won't lie, those last few chapters were taxing. There were days I was convinced my muse had packed her bags, and moved somewhere with better Wi-Fi. I honestly wasn't sure I'd make it to the finish line.

Turns out she never left. She was just lurking in the background, sipping something fancy and watching me spiral, waiting for the perfect dramatic moment to show back up.

A little scheduling question for you

Hey, everyone, long time no blog, right? Well, life has pretty much sucked for most of this year, and my energy for writing, posting, and such has been largely hit-and-miss because of it. I'm hoping that now the worst might be behind me, so I think I'm back in the saddle.

Lost a story
Man overhears 3 girls wanting to set up 'Feminine Fashions for Men' - he interrupts and within the year, there is great success based on his input, and one of the girls invites him for a private dinner .....
Thanks AP

I am working on revising “Paranomia” and combining it into one narrative with “A Heart of Crystal”

Yesterday, great morning, found one of those sweet spots where nothing poked or hurt for the morning. So get up, ready to take painkillers, reminds me, chemist should have delivered. So carefully down the stairs I go, nope, but a sorry we missed you card. Went to pick up card.....

Yeah.... bounce off 2 walls and land flat on my back. No leverage to get up or turn over. Oh Dear!

Hit alert button. It no work. Dearie me.

This is 12:15'ish.

I've been filling out my absentee ballot; taking time to google each candidate. I've noticed that the candidates for local and state school boards as well as other offices connected to education are most likely to address issues of gender and sexuality. Don't skip those parts of the ballot even if getting information on less publicized offices is harder. They matter!

Going through previous blog posts, I was really touched by all the kind comments I received after I was disappointed with the result of my cataract surgery and I must post an update.

This weekend has been variations of wet and miserable, all the way up to catastrophic and terrifying depending on exactly where you live. The early season Nor’easter sweeping up the Atlantic coast has inundated costal regions with rain, high winds, and tidal flooding driven by the storm winds and a full moon.

Been unwell, seriously, have cancer, in pain, life is.... not great.

But still alive, hanging in etc.

Just a quick update to pass the time.

Finally, I have my epic in (virtual) print. It is being published by BC in the original 7-book format and the first book is now on sale.

It is being done to help BC. If I had never come here this story would never have been written, never even been thought of. It is only BigCloset and the amazing readers and writers who come here who made Somewhere Else Entirely even possible.

The title: "I Dare You to Finish This Entire Video..." https://youtu.be/IjgK_iZHHDU

The first time I watched it, I spent a little time doing what the video mentioned. I think this is very much related to the "shorts" category. Unfortunately, I have a distressingly short attention span, usually. My Sudoku addiction is an exception.

New chapter of Coop this week. There was one last week too in case everyone missed it. I forgot to post a blog about it. Sadly, not sure if there will be one next week. I've caught up with my buffer again. Haven't had the chance to sit and fully write Ch.7 these last few days.

So I just got home from my Ophthalmologist's office, and we discussed multiple options for healing my cornea damage including two that would involve, as I had been expecting, literally clapping a membrane over my cornea and blinding me for a couple of weeks at a time. These treatments didn't work well for me before so I was reluctant but willing to try it.

Then she suggested serum tears

is the name of my new (German) ballet teacher