I have a new story done, finally! This one took me kind of forever, and for that I apologize.

Since it's way too long for LJ, I can at least post links to it on both SoFurry and FurAffinity!

It's another story with your second-favorite fictional ringtail and mine, Reylin Saticoy. Who really needs to behave inside my head so that I can write about him more expediently.

The backpack recovered at the scene included the following contents:

- 7" promo single of "Six Months in a Leaky Boat" by Split Enz
- One paperback copy of The Otters of Rydale by Edmund K. Tinsley (1961 printing)
- Cheque book in the name of [REDACTED]
- Two Bic Cristal ballpoint pens, caps heavily chewed
- One pack of Winfield Blue cigarettes, containing 12 cigarettes and piece of chewing gum wadded up in foil

So since I know I don't exactly post with amazing frequency, I thought I'd post a quick sample from an upcoming story that I've been working on, starring good ol' Reylin.

Usual caveats, here, about this being a work in progress and there being no guarantees about this making it into the final story unchanged, but I'm sure the scene itself will at least make it into the story.

( Cut for some kinda-naughty stuff! )

I've been using the name "K.M. Hirosaki" for ten years now. I'll start off by saying that it doesn't feel like it, in some senses, and that 2002 also feels like forever ago at the same time.

Now that secret (that most people didn't even know WAS a secret) about my "identity" is out of the bag, a lot of folks have asked what's going to happen with these two names that I write and post under. The short answer is that I'm not going anywhere. The longer answer involves stuff like brand identity and stuff like that.

So here's a little story about how K.M. Hirosaki got started.

My first adult furry stories have been long lost to catastrophic computer failure. The first ones that I ever posted online, however, are still out there, and I remember how I felt back then, putting works up online for others to see. I believe my thought process was something along the lines of, "Oh god, nobody can know I wrote this."

Which I guess is a natural reaction when you're young and still kind of new to the whole "life after college" thing. I picked the name "Hirosaki" in honor of one of my favorite cities in Japan, home to a beautiful castle and apparently some of the best cherry blossom viewing in the country (which, alas, I never got to do). The "K.M." was to make it sound more, I dunno, authorly I guess.

Back in 2002 and 2003 or so, when the site then known as Yiffstar was still very small, I had the good fortune of building up a fanbase pretty quickly. Granted, more stories get uploaded to SoFurry in a DAY nowadays than I think would get uploaded to old-school Yiffstar in a whole week back then, so it was easier to stand out. Still, the result was that I developed a nice rapport with my fans, and I soon came to the conclusion that writing stories about animal-people for grown-ups wasn't anything to be embarrassed about.

Then, of course, I got hired by a company that produces a very well-known anthropomorphic-related franchise, and I thought to myself, "You know, I don't think my bosses would appreciate the connection very much if they happened to Google me and find me writing furry porn*."

So, the years went by, and I kept my adult writing under this name, and my not-as-adult writing under my people-name, which was openly tied to my "main" fursona. When it came time to release my first novel, I remember people asking me, "Why don't you just release it under K.M. Hirosaki? Sure, it's not adult, but you could ride the popularity boost."

But the fact of the matter is that I had more popularity as a non-adult writer than I ever did as "K.M. Hirosaki," not counting those early years. That, and I was too proud of what I'd written to NOT put my real name on the cover. This is also kind of why I'm annoyed whenever I hear people claim that writing adult content is like "cheating" or some kind of "quick fix" to ensure popularity. Because it's not, and having been two writers at the same time, I can say that. :)

Anyway, as the years went on at my old job, after having been there for six years, I finally realized that the company didn't give a shit about what I did with my personal life. Hell, I was the "office furry" anyway, and the company was full of nerds, and nobody ever gave me shit about it (if anything, they were a bit reserved about the fact that they were curious and wanted to ask me questions). And I was starting to think, "You know, having two writing names is kind of annoying and doesn't really gain me anything except for separating my fanbases when they don't need to be." (At this point in my career, I should point out that I was regularly TSing while AT work, so I didn't much fear furry-related repercusions, really.)

Then, of course, Kyell and I started up Unsheathed.

Now, I'd only been considering de-pseudonyming myself up to this point, and hadn't actually done so (clearly), and so as the podcast happened I sort of reestablished myself as "K.M. Hirosaki" being one of the two hosts. So at that point, it made sense to stick with it, because I didn't want to confuse anyone by suddenly changing names partway through, plus the K&K thing was kind of neat, and "fox and otter" makes for better demographic breakup than "fox and fox."

And so that was that. But years of being on a podcast, taking questions about novel writing and not being able to answer questions about them in more tangible detail made me feel hamstrung. Also, it was honestly getting a little silly, especially since I'd begun appearing in public at that point and, as anyone who's met me in person can attest, I kind of stand out (that being said, it IS hilarious that a fake pair of glasses had managed to fool people when that wasn't even my intention).

So yeah, after all was said and done, I figured, why not just come out and put an end to the secret that almost nobody was wondering about. I'd dithered with seriously considering doing so for like three years, and in the end, I have nothing to be ashamed of, and I'm happy that two separate reader bases can now look at my stuff and go, "Oh, this author I like wrote all this other stuff, too!" and at the end of the day, everyone wins with that.



*Honestly, I don't think my stories are popular because they're particularly good at the whole orgasm-inducing thing, but the "erotica vs pornography" discussion is a whole other post, really.

I had two journal entries I wanted to post about my whole "dual writing identity" thing I've had going on for the last decade or so. Originally I was going to write this one second, after an entry where I explained just why I decided to "out" myself at all, as it were, but after thinking about it some more, I decided to go with this entry here, instead.

One of the weirdest things for me to do on Unsheathed over the last couple of years has been to act as if I hadn't written and published any books. In retrospect, it was a silly thing to do, because half the point of the show is that kyellgold and I nominally know what we're talking about, and pretending to have less in the way of writing credentials hardly did any favors to my image as anything but the comic relief on the show (not that I mind in any way being the comic relief, I should point out).

But yes, for years and years, I've had people telling me, "You should write a book!" And while I've been working on Summerhill for over two years now (the final draft is in with the publisher now, honest), the fact of the matter is that I actually already had two books out before that.

This dovetails into one of the questions I get more often, which is, "Whatever happened to your Blue Forest stories?"

Honestly, part of the reason is that those stories are really old and I don't think they're very good. And yes, I know that a lot of people will insist otherwise, but the fact of the matter is that I'm the writer, I wasn't happy with them, and I don't really feel like they're representative of my work.

The less snide reason is that, in trying to sort of some of the details on the backstory of that series, I came up with something (that I think is) better. That's where Thousand Leaves and The Seventh Chakra come in.

If you're one of the people who read the "Blue Forest" stories before I took them down (and if you didn't, don't worry, honest), you might remember that I had all this backstory about the world and this political and social situation that was coloring everything. One day, I sat down to try to nail some of the details of that backstory down, I think because I wanted to create a timeline so that I could accurately reference how many years ago which events took place. In doing that, though, I realized that the core to one of the biggest elements of this backstory was kind of interesting in its own right.

And in the course of hashing out those details, the idea for my first novel, Thousand Leaves, was born.

It was an interesting time in my life. My career was going smoothly without a lot of snags, and I'd recently become friends with a certain writer-fox who lived nearby and who provided some excellent feedback on my writing, and even better inspiration for me. And so I thought, hell, why not giving this novel-writing thing a try?

Okay, so that makes it sound easy, and it wasn't. It took almost two years to go through, and as has been the case with every book I've written, I threw away almost as much stuff as I wrote in the process of getting it finished. Now, with the hindsight of seven years (holy cow, has it been that long?), there are a lot of things I would have done differently, but for a first novel, I think I did okay. Okay enough that I don't cringe too much when people ask me to sign it. :)

The way this relates to "Blue Forest" is that I essentially wanted to go back and tell the story I'd been telling, but I wanted to do it right. When I first started the series, the entire point of it was that it'd be a bunch of stories that all took place in the same city, but which didn't really interconnect except for small backgroiund details. But that didn't happen; in short order, I had this long, continuing narrative that I hadn't ever planned on, and so earlier stories in the series hadn't built the proper foundation to support it. Also, it was getting harder and harder to string together a sociopolitical thriller plotline and still shoehorn raunch gay sex into every installment.

My plan always has been (and still is) to get back to that story someday, and to do it right. Thousand Leaves might not be "Blue Forest," but it's part of what "Blue Forest" is going to stem from, so if you were a fan of those old stories, I'd ask that you check out the novel.

Now, with The Seventh Chakra, I was kind of caught off guard. I was actually in the middle of trying to write a different novel when the story and characters for this new story kept insisting on taking up more and more of my time, demanding I write that story instead. Ultimately, it took is also related to the events of "Blue Forest," in a way that I hope becomes clear when I eventually write further books in the series.

Anyhow, if you've been interested in my stories before and have been wondering what a novel by me would be like, now you have two to choose from. You can read them in either order (I wrote them specifically to support that); The Seventh Chakra takes place first, chronologically, but the story doesn't spoil anything for Thousand Leaves, and vice-versa.

So yeah, there you have it. I hope that answers some questions some people might have had, and maybe intrigues a few people more.

Hey there, folks!

So, I've been toying with the idea of doing a live, alcohol-fueled viewing of all six Star Wars films, and setting up some kind of stream so that folks can watch and listen in as I go off on (hopefully amusing) tirades and provide some uber-nerd commentary on the movies. I'd likely have other folks sit in with me as guests, too, so that I have someone to banter with and not just talk to myself (although that might get amusing in its own right after a while).

I asked on Twitter a few days ago, and people seemed amused by the idea and at least interested enough to give it a shot. And I do really want to do it because I think it'd be a lot of fun.

Now I just have a question of format, and what's where your guys' feedback comes in.

Would people prefer that I do a big, long, six-movie, 14-hour marathon viewing session of all the films back to back? Or would it be better if I did them one a time, say one film a week for six weeks? I can see pros and cons of doing it either way, and I'm curious what other folks would most prefer.

Either way, I might be able to record the sessions themselves and then release them as podcasts or something later on, so that's an idea, too.

Hey guys,

I know it's been a while since I've had a lot of news about "Summerhill." And I know I said it was done, too. But, well...

Okay, the short version is that some last-minute edits needed to be done. They were suggested by the publisher, but I agreed with them completely, and I'm glad for it because in retrospect some of the things that were in this supposedly "finished" version of the book were in major need of fixing.

Long story short: the book is still coming out later this year, but I don't have a release date yet. I know I said Anthrocon previously, but that's probably not happening, just as a matter of production logistics (all the stuff like getting the art and setting the book and doing the layout and then getting them made takes a long time). For now, we'll call it "sometime in the second half of 2012" and when I have a better idea, I'll be sure to let you know.

But hey, I discovered tonight that if you type my name in the Google, the third suggestion that pops up is "k.m. hirosaki summerhill," so that implies that people are (or were) interested, and that's something!

So yes, patience! I promise it's coming.

Hey folks!

So, it's that time of year again, where we furry creative types go out and point out that, hey, the Ursa Major Awards have opened for nominations again!

I don't have a lot on the table this year, I know, but I have a few things, and if you liked any of them I think it'd be cool of you to put in a vote for a nomination. Here's what I'm actually elligible for, all in the "Short Story" category:

* "Good Manners Among Otters" (FurAffinity, March 2011)

* "Pretty Pretty Please" (FurAffinity, March 2011)

* "The Professional" (The Fortune Teller's Poem, FurPlanet, June 2011)

* "Stagnated" (Hear #8, Sofawolf Press, June 2011)

* "Let's Play Musical Chairs" (FurAffinity, July 2011)

* "Dirty Little Freaks" (Bad Dog Book Club and FurAffinity, October 2011)

All of those stories except for "The Professional" and "Stagnated" are available in my FA gallery. And since I know that your guys' votes need to be spread around (hopefully!) multiple authors and all, if you had to pick just one of mine, I'd personally suggest either "Stagnated" or "Let's Play Musical Chairs" (though of course, I wouldn't ask anyone to vote for a story they weren't fond of).

Thanks, folks!

Hey folks!

This might be your last chance to get in on the story commission I've got up for auction. The auction ends at around 8pm PST today, so check it out now if you're interested!

http://www.furbuy.com/auctions/1027538.html

Hey folks!

For those of you who may have missed it with Thanksgiving happening and all, I've got a commission auction for a short story up on Furbuy, and it closes in just over two days.

http://www.furbuy.com/auctions/1027538.html

If anyone is interested and has any questions about what I will and won't do, feel free to ask!

Happy bidding!