This weekend and after a flurry of writing almost fifty thousand words, I finished the draft of Puppy Mill 2, a commissioned sequel to my fantasy epic story of sex and submission (and creatively named), Puppy Mill.

Of everything I have written, Derik's Luck would have be my most successful in terms of fan mail and requests for the story. That is one reason I've been pushing to get it published this years. I'll have more about that later, but not this post because I want to talk about my favorite amputee, Merrie.

When I started Puppy Mill on Gurochan, I announced that it wasn't going to be a long piece (coming off Derik's Luck) and it should be a short series. It took me almost eighteen months to write that epic and it went in directions I wasn't planning. It ended up being my second most popular piece was one of only two pieces that have ever gotten fan art (the other being From the Cold).

Fans and Requests

I say Puppy Mill has been a success since I've had requests to make leather-bound versions, to pay to get it professionally edited, typo suggestions, and a request to go back and smooth out some scenes.

But then, out of the blue, I got a fan mail that requested more, to see what would happen next. They were very persuasive.

I also had some vague ideas if I continued, including Merrie alternating between being a madam for an exclusive brothel in Franome City (in accordance to the Whore's Guild) and spending her summers at the mill to enjoy a bit of training. I liked the idea of changing the mill to require consent, the spit-muffins and puppies of the world who craved what the mill gave instead of kidnapping them off the streets (how Puppy Mill started). A lot of it was tied into Bass and the others realizing they really were terrible villains and the paladin's desire to be a “good guy” again. Well, a good guy who enjoyed breaking submissive sluts.

I wasn't sure if I could pull this off, but I agreed for a periodic amount of money which made Puppy Mill 2 my largest commission also. But, it would be a low-keyed one, one that I made a point they could stop at any time. At the point, it was also my first commission where I got paid while writing it instead of everything at the end.

I write using Git and everything is in a text file. I can show the entire history of writing Puppy Mill 2: From the Shadows (well, almost any story written after 2012 which is when I moved from Subversion to Git and lost most of the history).

So, on August, I write a few chapters of Merrie's trials before the epilogue of Puppy Mill. From there, the story took a life of its own and I've finally come to almost exactly the scene that I was aiming for in 2016.

Finishing

I really look forward to seeing what readers think about the story as a whole and the ending. It's hard to top the ending of Puppy Mill, but I think I came close and can't wait to find out if I pulled it off.

Now that Puppy Mill 2 is done, I'll probably set up a once-every-four-week posting of the chapters which should take us into next year. If you want to read all of it (or get it in ebook form) while support my writing, please subscribe.

For the $1 tier, you'll also get a story or batch of chapters every month (minimum 8k words but has gotten into the six digits).

The $5 tier gets everything plus you get to choose what I work on next, typically on a month-to-month basis and also my longer-term “big” project (on the order of Derik's Luck or Monsters Under Her Bed).

Spoilers

The rest of the post has some spoilers for both Puppy Mill and Puppy Mill 2.

Transitions

A lot happened between August 2016 and June 2021. Five years of life had countless little interruptions, flaws, and changing plans.

I think that shows in Puppy Mill 2. Merrie struggles with her identity, which I thought was a logical conclusion at the end of the first piece. She was already overwhelming powers (she did kill a goddess with her bare teeth in the first one), but she needed a challenge. She needed something to grind her down so she could shine.

In D&D 3.5e terms, she ended Puppy Mill as basically a 20th level character, which meant this story was the struggles of being an epic character in the world. In other words, The Superman Problem, when the world is cardboard and you have to struggle not to break it.

This is probably was the hardest sequel I had ever written because of that. Most of the other sequels are riffs on the first one: girl gets fucked by a tentacle in the bathtub, part two is a girl getting fucked by a tentacle in the bathroom, part three is a boy being fucked by tentacles in the bathroom, all before part four where a girl gets fucked by tentacles under the bathroom.

Plaguehound said it well, Puppy Mill was two novels. And that bifurcation meant I couldn't just copy/paste the story. I couldn't do that to Puppy Mill 2 because Merrie could never go back to the innocence of that first part that made it such “boner inducing”.

So, Puppy Mill 2 isn't as much stroke material (though I really hope it turns you on), but I decide to delve into the transition into something else. Those points in your life when your old role becomes starkly different than your own: the transition from coder to manager, from bachelor to father, that point where you realize you are transgender, or the world before and after being sent to prison. In effect, the point of no return where one's old cannot be returned to but it remains a longing memory of something “better” yet wasn't.

A lot of this novel is about transitions, moving into bigger arenas of power, making an oath that couldn't be broken, and facing consequences for something you didn't do or deserve.

Compulsions and Oaths

Along the way, and I had no idea it would happen, I realized that the characters in my story were using geasa, oaths, and compulsions as a crutch. It was a major theme in Puppy Mill but it was also turning into Superman's kryponite. Have a problem, throw a suggestion at her and she's screwed!

I ended up exploring those a lot more than I thought I would. It became a major plot in the story, working with compulsions, and I think it worked out well.

This also ties a lot into the idea of consent. I think when it comes to Merrie's story, it makes a lot of sense given that she started by being kidnapped and raped but ended with her being her own woman.

Voice

This is also about finding one's voice through influences of others. As you grow up (even now as an adult), you find things that change how you think but they don't always work. You have to work with them, play with it, maul the concepts, and then they become part of you. You cease to think of yourself as straight, goth, a loner, or any other attributes and come down to “I'm just me and that is fucking awesome.”

This is an important to both me and the person who commissioned this piece. Because they are fucking awesome, but they don't always realize it. And I cherish the time I've have become friend with them over these five years and hope to see it continue.

Struggle for self brings power, never forget that.

Future Plans

Not sure. I'd like to say I'm never going to write a piece that is over two hundred thousand words, but let's be honest. I'm going to. Sooner or later, I'm going to find some story that calls me. When that happens, I'm going to write it because I write until the story ends. I don't like to put in filler to cover space, only chapters to convey the sense of time or struggle. Some get long, some remain short.

But I know I'm going to keep writing.

I have monsters under a bed to chase down next.