I make money on maintenance contracts for my old software, but also for custom modules. Once again, the hardware my software works with isn't cash registers, but it's a good analogy, so I'll keep it.

Since I managed to secure the rights to be a reseller for them, I mail a monthly check to the company that now has the rights to my software for the sales of licenses of my software. Let's call them ACME.

That is the extent of my relationship with them: they don't care about my software, they just want the money I mail them every month. They just had rules and limitations I had to respect, such as ensuring that my customers could migrate to their software but without allowing the opposite migration.

Since I am the only guy selling it and since I have limited contact, the checks I have been mailing them has been smaller and smaller.

You see, a client only needs to buy the base software once for each of his devices and he is licensed for life.

When I release new versions, they need to pay me a maintenance fee for the new version, but otherwise, the only time money will go to ACME is when they increase of the number of devices they have or when I sell to a new client.

With the recession, there are no new clients and existing clients do not increase their number of machines, causing months without any revenues for ACME from me.

Fortunately for me, that doesn't mean they can stop paying their maintenance fees or that they stop needing custom modules.

Last December, ACME flew me to their head quarters. This was the first time I met them in person and I was rather nervous.

They explained that they were running a deficit for 2012 and that my software was no longer bringing the revenues they expected and that they wanted to sell it to someone else, possibly me.

We spend 2 excruciating days negotiating a price and a payment plan, but after I remortgaged my house and borrowed money left and right, I was finally the owner of my own software, which I had begun writing over 15 years ago and which is now installed in machines around the world.

The good news is that now, I control 100% of the software, not just the code, but also how to name it, how to price it, and I get 100% of the revenues.

The bad news...[Continue reading on the site]

Imagine that it is a computerized cash register company. It's not, but it's the best example I can come up with.

So, this company has hundreds of employees who either design the new models or build them, in addition to all of the support staff such as accountants, sales representatives, support personnel, etc...

But I was the only software developer on staff and as such, was pretty much left unsupervised. 

As long as I delivered the software for the new models on time and that I fixed bugs in a timely fashion, I was left alone.

I wrote the first version within 6 months. It was a major success and it improved the stock software they were using by adding a plugin module which allowed me to write add-ons.

They didn't request it. I just thought it was a good idea. If we keep in mind the cash register analogy, imagine that I could write custom tailored inventory tracking systems or special networking tools allowing to pause a transaction in one cash register and resume it on another.

They launched new models and expected me to work months and months on each new software to tailor them to the new models when it really only took me a few days, allowing me to constantly improve the base software.

The 2000-2001 recession hit really hard and the company went bankrupt just as it was in the process to expand their manufacturing capacities. Another company bought them and decided to use their own software and thus, had no need for me.

In lieu of a severance package, I asked for the right to my now useless software so I could still support their old customers and make a living that way. I got the right to sell add-ons and maintenance packages, but sadly not to actually sell it. When I sell a copy, I sadly still need to send the money to the new owners.

Soon enough, I adjusted my software to work on other models of cash registers and allowed it to work on almost everything in that industry.

I couldn't make money selling the base software itself, but I could sell the modification to run on their version.  It's a lot less money that I would have hoped, but I also make a profit doing custom plug-ins.

The number of users using my software has increased and the new owner are idly making money off my back, but I don't really mind. 

I still generally make enough money to live, and I am the only person with the source...[Continue reading on the site]

But sadly, this means that I had missed the whole "immature" relationships that high school usually bring during which you get to learn the mysteries of dating. Instead, all my dating experiences occurred when I was already an adult.

This fascination however, is only in my writing. When I was 14, the perfect woman in my mind was 14. When I was 16, the perfect woman in my mind was 16. Now that I am in my thirties, I follow the same pattern: younger woman have no appeal for me because of their lack of maturity. Only women in my age group seem potentially intriguing in real life.

And yet, I still find them less interesting when it comes to writing, perhaps because I like broken protagonists. I like to create immature characters which are opposite to my calm and reasonable personality. I like to express the primal personality I used to have because it become so much easier to express conflict at the personality level.

Teenagers reinvent the world, they reject all authority. They are in transition from the carelessness of childhood to the responsibility of adulthood. If you want to write a "coming of age" story, teenagers are the perfect vessel for such a progress.

Plus, if you want to write a seduction stories in the type of "boy meets girl", I still believe that the teenage years are the best, perhaps because I met my eventually wife when I was only 19 and has such, have no idea how full post-education adults actually deal with it or perhaps because I am a romantic who believe in young and eternal love.

The Deserted Beach, only features adults in their late twenties, thought their actual age...[Continue reading on the site]

When I first designed the universe, it was to become a novel. I wrote a series of character arcs for the novels, mostly the story of Jake one of the original teenage boys (a textile) who develops an affection for Emily one of the new citizens (a nudist).

Surrounding them was the severe recession in the USA which left Eden's creek one of the rare prospering towns causing the textiles to stay in town despite their ever decreasing numbers. As a back drop was the terraforming which transformed the valley into almost a paradise while the rest of the USA was becoming increasingly arid due to global warming.

The General was an omnipresent force in the town in the way he built and designed it even if he was dead prior to the first page of the novel. His legacy affected the dynamics of the town like a ghost hunting it and causing friction.

The reason is that the General had decided to separate the town into 2 sectors : the military one and the civilian sector, with the businesses in the civilian sector and the high school, hospital and industrial buildings on the military side. There was 2 grade schools, one for naturists and one of textiles. When DeriMarks came in, in the novel, they only took control of the military sector and only legalized nudity across the town without any enforcement.

As a result, most of the textiles never went on the military side (unless they had to go the hospital) and most of the naturists avoided the civilian side (they lived in the old military houses).

The end result was that the high school kids were the only real source of conflict since they had to go to school in the naturist sector of town. Parents were polarized in the fight and only the kids had to deal on a daily basis with the other side of the fight.

Jake thus became the first textile to join the naturist ranks out of love for Emily.

But the novel would have been a failure. The characters were all too one-dimensional for a novel. That's fine for support characters in a 1200 words short story, but in a 60,000 words novel your support characters need to have a certain depth.

And financially, the town didn't make any sense. Why build houses both in the outskirt of town and in the middle of the base ? If the textiles lived exclusively from commerce, this meant the naturists would...[Continue reading on the site]

Seduction is a complex operation. Not necessarily sexual seduction, but when you meant a client and try to convince him or her to buy from you something, you are in a way trying to seduce that person. Why do you think that pretty saleswomen are often the best to sell clothes to man ? Because we want our clothes to be attractive and when a pretty women tells us that it looks good on us, we tend to believe it's true.

For me, that's all part of sexuality. It's not erotic, but it is sexual. Every single day my wife does things totally unrelated to sexuality or erotism which turn me on. Her action might not be sexual or erotic in nature, but it certainly contains an involuntary sexual context.

They say the human being is a social animal. They also say that 80% of our communication is non-verbal, which includes the way we look, move and dress. I believe that a portion of that non-verbal communication and social exchange is sexual in nature.

I don't mean that I am pervert... I see the Islamic veil or the burqa as items with a strong sexual message, the message being: "I am not interested". A deep cleavage is a message saying either: "I think I am attractive" or "I hope I am attractive". A well cut business suit is a message saying: "I am successful and can support my family".

In none of these cases, it is an erotic act. It's not exhibitionism to wear those clothes and it's not voyeurism to look, but part of the message has a sexual undertone. I think we can't avoid it. We can avoid picking up on the messages left by the others, but we cannot avoid sending those messages anymore that we can avoid sending messages when we are bored, fascinated, excited, tired, etc...

I don't think that the reason we act the way we do or dress the way we do is sexual in nature, but I think it's one of the reasons. We decide to dress someway to project an image of ourselves and part of that image is sexual (or asexual) in nature.

For me, when it comes to naturism, all those half unconscious sexual motivations do not simply vanish into thin air. We will have them, but we have decided to drop the one static portion of our non-verbal communication which is artificial in nature:...[Continue reading on the site]

Believe it or not, the idea came into my mind when I was in my own bathtub. My wife and I sometimes take our baths together, but even when only one of us is in the bath, the door isn't locked or often, not even closed.

That day, I was relaxing of a long and hard day and just decided to stay in the warm water to cool down. After a while thought, the water cooled down and my wife joked not to waste my evening in the bath. "Growing up in the bathtub" was written the very next day.

Out of those un-lived experiences, I decided to write a story to highlight what I could have possibly lived. Of course, unlike Mark, I was already fascinated with naturism so I would have reacted differently, but otherwise, I am trying to imagine how my past could have looked like had my ex-girlfriend's family really been full time naturists from the first time I met them.

Mark however, isn't based on me and Jenny is definitely not based on my ex-girlfriend or on anyone I know in particular. 

Please note that the Mark and Jenny story wasn't planned to become a serial. I had written over 10 chapters and realized it was time to publish what I had so far to get a reaction and see if it could motivate my creativity well enough to eventually return to my Elizabeth story and serialize it over the course of several month.

Sadly, I am realizing that I am a much better short story writer than a novel or serial writer. In order to create interesting novels or serials, you need a conflict in almost every instalment to generate interest, but since you always have the same characters and the same settings, you need either very rich characters or a very rich settings to generate ideas for conflict.

With a short story, I can think of the conflict and simply create the characters I need to man that conflict. I had the idea "What if someone becomes the human torch and burns all his or her clothes every time they get emotional ?". I don't think there is enough material in just that thought for a novel, but it was sufficient to write "A Fiery Teenager". Had I wanted to write a serial, I would need lots of support characters and story ideas.

I still have ideas for Mark and Jenny. I am just having a hard time finding the conflicts to place in each instalment. In other words, I have enough narrative to make it to the already written epilogue, but I just don't have yet the conflict in each of the instalments to make them interesting enough to read.

I am trying to find new conflicts, new...[Continue reading on the site]

In 2003, I had published "A Twitch of Faith" and I was working on a new novel which would become the current Eden's Creek story.

I spent over 6 months detailing the city, the major characters, the premise, but I was unable to actually write it.

For almost 5 years, between 2003 and 2008, I barely wrote, but In October 2008, I wrote the first 5 episodes of Mark and Jenny, which remained unpublished until the end of 2009. 

I was very inspired by Mark and Jenny, but I couldn't complete the series then and soon enough, I was once again staring at a white page and put the site aside. I did begin the outlining of a story called "Bliss" which has a great background and location, but which I was never able to write it. Perhaps one day.

In May 2009, I resumed my writing, first with  "The Secret Beach" and before the end of the month, I had published 7 episodes in the Catherine Reynolds series. It remains my most productive writing month in my life, despite the recent Eden's Creek publications, for I consider the Catherine Reynolds series to be one of my finest piece of work and your comments seem to show that you agree with me.

Between May and August,  I wrote several short stories including Suzy and her Father, Growing up in the Bathtub and a fiery teenager. My productivity gave me enough confidence so that in Mid-August, I felt I was ready to go back to Mark and Jenny and wrote 5 new chapters in the span on only 4 days.

I also began writing several other stories during that time frame which didn't work out but which might later get revisited.  "Saving the Pool" was one of such stories. In Its original format, it was viewed from the point of view of the naturists and was absolutely boring. In October 2009, I rewrote it from the point of view of the lifeguards and was satisfied enough to publish it.

The success of the Lifeguard rewriting led me to write "An odd Saturday afternoon" in the Mark and Jenny serial which prompted me to start serializing it.

But Mark and Jenny didn't speak to me. Instead, Catherine Reynolds kept telling me she was pregnant and looking for case to announce it to her readers. I know it sounds weird, but she had been bugging me since June 2009. 

I only got my...[Continue reading on the site]

I already had written a kind of coming-of-age story of a teenage girl (Liza) who had to choose between her real friends and being popular. If you have seen the movie "Mean Girls", the plot is almost identical, but a lot less interesting. There's a few scenes I am quite proud of, but generally speaking, "Mean Girls" does it much better than I ever could and seeing the movie caused me to halt the writing.

One of the reasons was that the real friends in questions were too one-dimensional. The popular girls each had their own personalities, but the other characters were rather plain.

The conflict was lived internally within the lead character as well as with the popular girls, never with her true friends, like in the movie where in the end, she is really caught in between.

So I decided to write a new story about a teenage girl (Beth) who discovers that her best friend and her cute brother (and love interest) live in a naturist center. The story is slightly similar to the Stephany Conners' diary and was inspired from it: Beth becomes a naturist, but when her other friends learns about it, instead of becoming naturists then attack her choices.

The ending left to be desired, but one morning, I had a flash of genius. I created a new story about a teenage girl caught between popular friends and one true friend who was a naturist.

What is the name of the girl ? Elizabeth. I simply combined both stories to make it a much more interesting plot. The integration of the two storylines was never fully completed, but it currently stands at 52,360 words, with me being unable to finish it due to a lack of a proper ending : my Liza story never really had an ending, and the one for the Beth story is now anti-climatic because of the added elements.

Meanwhile, in 2003, the Stefany Conner's website went offline and the Kristen Lifeguard story I had just discovered online was lacking proper hosting (it was posted chapter by chapter on a forum). I had been in contact with both authors, so I proposed to create a site for archiving both stories, with the hope of one day publishing my Elizabeth novel.

I also uploaded a short story I had created when out of inspiration for my Elizabeth novel, "A Twist of Faith". 

I was perhaps 11 or 12 and while my parents were terrified and packed up our things as fast as possible, I was fascinated by how free and relaxed everyone was. If you read "The secret beach", it's a little inspired from my experience, except I never joined in the fun.

Several years later, I dated a girl (my first girlfriend) who admitted that her family visited a clothing-optional resort one week every summer. I saw pictures of the family nude in their hotel room as well as flyers for the resort (which was in Florida, but I cannot remember which one).

For the rest of the family, the trip was just something nice to do once per year, and neither her brother nor her parents mentioned it the rest of the year. It was as if they were nudists one week per year and pure textiles the remaining 51 weeks.

But for my ex-girlfriend, it was an eye-opener. She had pledged to live full time in a naturist center and was hoping I wouldn't be revolted by it.

I shared my fascination from my younger days on the beach, and soon enough, when we were alone together at her parent's house, we were definitely nude.

We had planned to visit a naturist center for a week-end or two on the next summer with her parent's blessing and I was even officially invited to their next nude vacation in August.

But naturism wasn't enough and my ex-girlfriend dumped me for another guy in May, roughly two weeks before our first planned naturist escapade.

Oddly enough, the guy wasn't a naturist, and the last I heard from her thru the mutual friend that introduced us, she never did visit a naturist center other than with her family on their usual vacation.

I, on the other hand, began visiting various naturist activities during that summer, but being a single man, I was only able to visit the center my ex and I had planned on visiting years later, with my wife.

• We will never force a visitor to click on multiple pages to read a single story or a single chapter of a story. This is often done by websites to force more page views and thus, more advertisement revenues
• If we do ever place advertisement on the site, it will be very limited and unobstrusive
• We will never place keyword ads in the text of articles
• We will never place pop-ups or pop-under ads on the site
• The only time we will collect e-mail address is from the writers, and only for the process of the publication. We will not spam them.
• If we publish your stories, we will never charge you anything for the publication, even for being included in a compilation. In our opinion, money flows from the publisher to the writers, not the other way around.
• If articles are one day sold on the site, it will only be at the request and for the profit of the authors.
• If an article is ever published free of charge, it will never be offered for sale later
• In other words, this is not a switch and bait operation. We are trully dedicated to offering a non-profit repository of naturist fiction stories. This is not an hidden corporate venture.

You will not find any nudist pictures (except for our current top banner) or sexual content.

And yet, there are many ways to write interesting naturist stories without touching the familiar "clue less non-naturist character discovers the naturist characters by having them answer the door nude" or the "character finds a naturist beach by chance" arc.

Here are a few ideas on how to write a story with naturism in it :

• A traditional story, such as boy meets girl, occurs at a naturist center. The center is only the setting for the story, not the story
• Incorporate some informal naturism, such as a skinny dipping adventure between friends
• Put one or more naturist characters amongst non-naturists, and have them deal with the pressure of conforming
• Write a story about a non-naturist falling in love with a naturist, or vice-versa
• Write a personal journey with the character trying naturism

But naturism doesn't need to be the center of the story. It doesn't need to be fully explicit : there is no need for the characters to actually undress. Simply treating the subject with respect can be interesting such as characters planning during the winter their next summer vacation. Regardless of what you do, try to be original.

Here are possible bad ideas for a story, unless you make them very interesting and pertinent:

• First time stories : there are plenty of true first time stories on the Internet. If you simply want to describe the first visit of a new naturist to a beach, it has possibly been already done. Try to add more.
• Immature naturism: games like strip poker or nude twister are not naturist. They are made or imagined by non-naturists as erotic, sexy or titillating. Of course, a strip poker game might lead to more discoveries, but if the game itself is the center of the story, it is not about naturism.
• Naturism as a result of a bet. In many stories, characters bet to go nude either as a result of losing a bet, or as the actual bet...[Continue reading on the site]]]>IntroductionInterview with the Administrator Tue, 21 Feb 2006 16:21:30 -0500 http://www.naturist-fiction.com/single-news/article/33/acceptable-stories-guidelines/?tx_ttnews%5Bcat%5D=4&cHash=7ab24f2aaeffd63b4f6c36a76dae40f3 Our policy about what is acceptable and what is not in stories published on this site.This site is a repository of naturist stories, but the definition of what constitutes a naturist story changes from one person to another. For some, a naturist story is any story with nudity in it, including for sexual purposes. For others, a naturist story is a story with card carrying naturists. As such, we feel it is important to clearly define the rules of what type of stories are acceptable for this site.

  For the purpose of this site, a naturist story is a narrative in which one or more of the characters experience or talk about naturism in a form compatible with the majority of naturist associations and centers.

  Here are examples of what can take part of an acceptable story :

  • Characters enjoying social nudity, in a kid friendly environment
  • Characters discovering social nudity, discussing frequently asked questions such as the fear of having an erection
  • Summary description of the appearance of a nude character, including approximate breast size for females
  • Kids enjoying social nudity

  Here are examples of what can make a story totally unacceptable:

  • Forced nudity, especially for the goal of humiliation
  • Explicit sexual relation descriptions
  • Hints on the sexuality of pre-teens
  • Hints on the sexuality of teenagers with adults, or of teenager with pre-teens
  • Hints of multiple partner sexual relation, or partner exchange ( swapping/swinging )
  • Any sexual connotation occurring in plan view at a naturist event

  Here are examples of situations which, if treated in a clean matter, might be tolerated if they add to the story, but would require a good reason

  • Hints on the sexuality of teenagers with teenagers the same age (such as a characters feeling attracted to one another or dating)
  • Implicit sexual relations (such as lightly mentioning the characters had sexual relations)
  • Sexism, gender discrimination, homophobia, but only if used to highlight the close-mindedness of an individual
  • Naturist imposing their nudity in non clothes-optional events
  • Description of genitals
  • Exhibitionism / voyeurism

  In general, you story must not be an erotic tale. It must not be pornographic in nature. Naturist events must be treated as family-friendly. Sexuality may be mentioned, but lightly. Think about PG-13 movies in which we see characters kissing, still fully clothed, while dropping on...[Continue reading on the site]

  ]]>IntroductionInterview with the Administrator Tue, 21 Feb 2006 16:15:11 -0500 http://www.naturist-fiction.com/single-news/article/33/why-this-site-was-created/?tx_ttnews%5Bcat%5D=4&cHash=5c2e6024f1bfafc7c2d11ecb18fad95d Explains the reasons behind the creation of this site, which fills a unique nicheNaturism and nudism include the participation in social nudity: activities performed without clothing. Even thought naturism is relatively popular in many countries, rare are the fiction stories written on the subject of true naturism, and nudism is under-represented in the popular media.occasionally, certain movies will touch the subject as a pretext for humour, such as non-naturist characters visiting a stereotyped nude beach but in almost all of these movies, the naturists are only non-speaking figurants appearing exclusively at the nude beach. In rare television shows, a naturist guest will be present for a single cop show, usually in a small role such as the wife of a missing man, or the witness of crime. The witness always lives in a non-naturist building, but still answers the door nude and never offers to put clothes on.

  Other shows, such as "This simple life" with Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie have filmed at a naturist center, but rarely do the naturists get the chance to present a true vision of what naturism is and the location is purely used for shock value.

  On the Internet, Naturism gets a much bigger view, partially thanks to an active naturist online community, but also, unfortunately, due to laws allowing public pictures of nude children and teenagers only in a naturist or artistic settings. Because of this, many producers, notably in Russia, have started to publish on the Internet "naturist" movies and picture of kids and teenagers at naturist events, blurring the line between naturism and pornography.

  To add to the problems, many erotic writers have published free stories occurring in so-called naturist centers with exhibitionism, orgies, swinging and other sexual activities occurring in plain view. While there are swingers everywhere in society, including at naturist centers, almost all naturist centers forbid overt sexuality.

  Other forms of writing very popular on the Internet are forced nudity and humiliation stories in which girls, often teenagers, are forced to undress in a public setting such as at school and are humiliated doing so.

  Naturists are not ashamed of their nudity, and are not humiliated if caught nude by accident by non-naturists, but they generally do not try to impose their nudity on others.

  We decided to create this site to both encourage internet writers to publish naturist stories, and to create an interest in such stories. The strict guidelines imposed on stories are to safeguard against stories moving...[Continue reading on the site]

  ]]>IntroductionInterview with the Administrator Tue, 21 Feb 2006 16:13:18 -0500