One of the hardest things about writing is having a completed story that you think is perfect in every way and then having one of your beta readers come along and completely dismantle it in such a way that you see what she’s talking about and how incorporating her comments will make the story better in the long run, except that now you have a ton of work to do.

On Sunday morning, I talked to one of my beta readers about my sorority girl / spanking court story, and she brought up a lot of very good points about my main character, her motivations, and the fact that she just wasn’t very likable. And I admit that I see all of those things — I didn’t make Kristen very likable in the beginning, mostly because she was so angry about everything. But I also didn’t explain why she was into spanking in the first place, especially at such a relatively-young age (she’s 20 in the story).

Fortunately, the discussion was extremely fruitful, and I’m already coming up with some ideas on how to make her more likable, make her interest in spanking more organic, and make it make more sense that she goes to a spanking party in the first place. I don’t have to change too much, but I will have to write at least another chapter or two. If I expand the story enough, I might be able to make a novel out of it, which means I could publish it as a paperback, not just as an ebook. (I won’t publish a paperback shorter than 50,000 words because I don’t think it’s worth a person’s money to pay for something that short, given how much I would have to charge to cover production costs.)

My plan is to work on it while I’m in Canada this week. I’m writing this post in advance, so for all you know I’m writing spanking fiction at the very moment you’re reading this story.

I’m also kind of wondering what it feels like to get a ten-swat punishment paddling with no warm-up. I should find someone willing to give me one of those. I’ll even provide the paddle.