Azul's 500th Submission

By the time it makes it through the submission process, the writing you are reading now will be my 500th submission to the site. I woke up on New Year's morning thinking about this. Breaking it down since I joined Lit in August of 2005, it doesn't sound like much at all. I mean, almost twenty-four years on the site and all I have to show for my writing is 500 writings, one of which is a self-serving summary of what it means to have that many submissions on here.

So, some statistics to consider as I write this.

Over that time, I have typed on five different computers when I submitted. The first two were shared laptops with my family before I was gifted my first laptop for myself alone.

If you look on my author page, you'll see twenty-five series. The first one was the "Noodles" series about a couple visiting another couple in the States. This series was inspired by the woman who persuaded me to submit my fantasies on Lit. It was during a tumultuous time when my wife was cheating on me with an online suitor. As a way of trying to appease me, the suitor's wife began to talk to me about things to try to even things out. This online relationship went south in a short amount of time and the relationship between my wife and the suitor went south soon after because of different reasons. Ironically, my wife and I are still together even though it feels more like a business partnership now to take care of our special needs son. The woman who inspired Noodles also inspired other stories as well, such as "Cable Ties", "Center of Attention", "How Nice Guys Get Lucky", "If At First...", and others.

My chosen genres have always been Erotic Couplings, Group Sex and Romance. Over the years, Romance has been the one that started to pull away if one was to go through the whole list and compare. According to Lit, my first story was submitted under Erotic Horror. It was "The Lottery" which was resubmitted as "How Nice Guys Get Lucky". It's one of those things I have learned over the years when it comes to writing that if you have a favorite, stick to it.

I also have four poems listed on my page that are counted as part. Two of these were written when the woman who inspired me at the beginning disappeared. The other two were pondering things. I never shared much of my poetry on Lit just because I shared it on a different site that seemed to be more of a way to get poets to buy an anthology more than allow them to share their writings.

The longest series to date would of course be the "Good Neighbors" series about neighbors who were there to support each other through the deaths of their spouses. This series was started in June of 2021 in part thanks to the woman that inspired Marcie. Ironically, I met her on the forum. We became friends right around my birthday. We became friends before we started chatting off the platform. She is now one of my closest friends even though she had been off Lit for a long time. The series ended on chapter 188 in March of 2022 before I started the second series entitled "Marcie and Leo."

There are many series that are inspired by or based on Litsters. I am not going to spill which Litster goes to which story since I'm not that kind of person. However, reading them reminds me of them and I have fond memories of what I was inspired by. One of the stories like this, "Inspired By...", was inspired when the Litster showed me a picture. She is no longer on Lit, but I frequently post with her on Facebook. Many of the others have moved on, either because their lives took them off Lit or because we had a falling out. As much as seeing the names hurts me sometimes, the fact is like relationships in life they move on and can be counted as memories, nonetheless.

One of the series I am most proud of on a personal level, even though honestly I do love everything I have wrote, was the essay I wrote called "Dealing With My Grief." It was written five months after the death of my father and represents one of turning points of my life in a way. At the time, I oversaw the company newsletter at the place I was working at, and I had to write an article about planning just in case. It was the first writing for Lit I did in a while as I was processing his passing. I visited it again ten years around his passing to see how I have changed as a person based on it. There are many writings where I have deep dived into my emotions or thoughts like that and I like using my writing to get my thoughts out of my head, even if some do not make it on the platform.

According to Lit, the writing with the most views was "Defrosting Kelly". It was published on the page on 5/1/2009. It was my 100th submission if I remember correctly and had ideas from different people on what to include in a story where an employee is blackmailed into coming to a sex party with his wife. Stories about sharing spouses, BDSM, and such-like are more fantasy material than real life experiences. Many of the topics I have written about are more research and imagination rather than things I am familiar with.

"Angel Time", a short series I have been writing on and off, is loosely based on a friendship I had developed with a barista who does certain online porn sites. Angel, the main character, is a real person albeit that's not her real name and is still a dynamite barista I try to see on a weekly basis. The first writing, "Ode to an Angel", represents my honest thoughts about her and people working in the sex industry as a whole and how they can be down to earth people even though they use their bodies to make money. The other writings are all fantasy although some of the interactions may be based on real life experiences.

It feels weird thinking about the number of writings. It feels even weirder submitting a writing to Lit based on it. The one thing that stayed consistent throughout this time writing is that I write because I want to. I have never tried to make money off my writings because I wouldn't know how to start with to be honest. It's also because I love doing it and I write to allow my fantasies to go somewhere besides being stuck in my head. I enjoy having thoughts inspire me and cultivating them into the writings I can submit onto the site. If they're hot enough to inspire others to take action, it's a bonus. To the readers who look at my stuff, I thank you so much. To the ones who have inspired me over the years, I thank them more. I am unsure how long I'll keep doing this. The only thing I know is that there are two submissions after this one that are waiting to be submitted tomorrow. As long as the inspirations keep coming, I'll keep typing. Thank you so much for reading this self-serving writing. And happy New Year.