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What I Wrote, and Why
ANDI'S DREAM
Andi's Dream comes from the first argument that I had with my wife over Hallmark channel "Christmas" movies. She and her mother were watching a pathetic Hallmark "Christmas" movie on TV. (Ever notice that Hallmark "Christmas" movies never mention Christ? After all, it is the day we celebrate His birthday, just sayin') and they were watching at full volume. "I could write a better story than that with one keyboard tied behind my back."
Mrs. D said "Huh?"
GG said, "What?"
"I mean, look at this - the overdressed guy with the four hundred dollar manatee hide gloves, the cashmere overcoat, and the snotty French butler pretending to be his Wisconsin Cheese head buddy. He knows nothing about Christmas trees and is secretly a prince and the girl that's running her sick father's Christmas tree lot is going to get mad at him. He's secretly going to pay off her bills and when she finds out she falls in love with him and they're going to get married and she's going to become queen."
"How do you know?" demanded Mrs. Duleigh.
"It's Hallmark Holiday Script Template #32," I replied.
An hour later, Mrs. Duleigh watched the end of the movie unfold as I predicted and muttered, "Lucky guess."
I went back to my "office" and stared at my computer, convinced I could write much better, more compelling stories with richer, likeable characters. I was recently laid off and handicapped, so I knew I would not get another job. I opened an old website I had been too busy to notice and was reminded that I wrote for Literotica thirteen years previously. I could do it again to kill time as I waited for the inevitable.
I sat down and wrote a story I called "Our First Year." It was a romance populated with characters that were based on people that I knew, and I put them in locations that I loved. It was a writing exercise and comprised several related stories, a woman stuck in a snowdrift, rescued by a bum who turns out to be a very rich past acquaintance. They're trapped by snow in his cabin and eventually make it back to his huge Victorian home.
Then I dropped it. I thought it was crap and put it aside, but I loved the character Andi Roberts so I used her in We're a Wonderful Wife and she makes her first appearance in Chapter 10. Andi is based on a friend that is truly as short as I describe in the story. I wanted to add more Andi into We're a Wonderful Wife, but that series was headed into very dark territory and when you see Andi in one of my stories, she's a sign that everything is going to be alright (mostly). Andi is fun loving, funny, sexy and hot. She's also a brilliant doctor, a devoted mother and a lousy cook.
Paul was loosely based on a fellow I knew in the USAF. He was incredibly tall, especially for someone working on the F-4 Phantom II, a plane that's slung close to the ground. This fellow was 6 feet 6 inches tall and skinny to the point where he was at the low edge of USAF's weight standards, and his wife, a mother of four kids, was 4 feet eight inches tall. I figured if they could do it, my couple could do it as well. The only other thing that makes Our First Year stand out was modular sex. Our First Year was rated PG13, but the descriptions that would make it a good solid X were separate from the narrative. If you were reading it in the original docx format, you would see a symbol that was hyperlinked to the missing sex.
Our First Year was supposed to be a group of stories intended to cover their full first year of marriage. I had a story about how they met, a story about how they took the kids to Florida and several stories about cruising around on their yacht and a story about how they got their yacht, and I hated much of it except for Andi, Macy, and John. So, I gave up on it and concentrated on We're a Wonderful Wife and StormWatch, occasionally using Andi as a guest character.
Andi's Dream - A Blizzard in Buffalo
In October 2023, I wanted to write something for the 2023 Winter Holiday, and I couldn't come up with anything that I wanted to write. I remembered a Christmas theme in Our First Year, so I dug it out and re-wrote the first several stories in Our First Year, welded them together, and called it A Blizzard In Buffalo. I liked it, but at first it wasn't Christmassy enough. I took out some dialogue and sent Paul, Andi, and the twins out into the woods to find a Christmas tree they didn't need.
I added my mother's favorite Christmas decoration, the "Missile Toast" bell, (It really exists, my sister has it now) and suddenly the twins were no longer just a device to remind you that Andi was truly a MILF. With that one MacGuffin, the twins came to life. Sandy and Madeline developed similar traits but differing personalities. I ended up going back and re-writing a lot of scenes, and added Wonka. The story ended with Paul digging their way out and taking Andi and the twins into the village and showing her the huge Victorian mansion they would move into.
Andi's Dream - A Wedding to Plan
Now, just like A Krissmas Karole, I had plenty of time before I could send in the entry for the contest; I had a stable of characters that I was beginning to love, and I was now in the mood to write. I put some classical choral Christmas music on Spotify and started writing. I cobbled together pieces of several bits of Our First Year and advanced the timeline and came up with A Wedding to Plan because I couldn't think of anything better for a name. Frank was supposed to get the smack-down mid spring and Andi was going to get his boat for her birthday. I moved it up to Christmas because smacking down an abusive, haughty ex-husband and taking away his toys is a very loving thing to do for any woman. The perfect Christmas gift! I added Giardinos Restaurant as a device to explain John and Paul's past. It's loosely based on a restaurant in Cheektowaga, NY, named La Bella Sicilia. The neighborhood they grew up in, Cedar Grove Heights (Tiorunda) also exists, and I lived there for years.
The problem with a Christmas Story is that unless you're dealing with the south, you need snow for Christmas. Buffalo rarely had snow for Christmas. The rule of thumb was this: If you want snow for Christmas, give your kid a bike. If you don't want snow for Christmas, give them a sled. It works every time.
The story was based on Andi getting ready for her wedding and Christmas and dealing with the fact that she was moving from the bustling city of Denver to the decaying rustbelt of Western New York and ended with Paul, Lucy, Gus and Ernie Kraft getting rid of Frank. But there's plenty of beauty in Western New York, especially the small towns in the snowbelt. Those towns almost always get some snow. But since everyone believes that the Buffalo area is buried in snow every year, I take some artistic license and prey on their misconceptions and it's always a White Christmas in my stories.
Andi's Dream - Joy to the World
I realized that put me into a pit - I named Story #2 "A Wedding to Plan" I suppose I better come up with a wedding. I also needed life in a small town in Western New York, and I introduced Worzils Bar and Grille. Worzils really exists (or did last time I checked about 15 years ago) so I added Ayato and Julissa Tanaka. They are based on real people (the real Ayato doesn't hear well, but he can sense trouble miles away). Their names come from the anime Asterisk War.
Beef on Weck and a Genny Cream ale is really the authentic food of Western New York. The wings and pizza are for tourists and high school kids. Next time you're west of Rochester, have a Beef on Weck and a Genny. They are the food of the Gods, ambrosia made for the brave survivors of Buffalo weather. And if you're there on a Friday, go to a local pub and get the fish fry, then leave your thanks and praise in the comment section below.
I didn't have a wedding planned out and time was growing short so I took another Our First Year story, the wedding of Lucy and Gus which was to take place in the autumn, and I moved it to Christmas Eve, replaced Gus with Paul and replaced Lucy with Andi. (Don't worry fans, Gus and Lucy will soon tie the knot) That's how Joy to the World was born. The big dinner was pure fabrication. I wanted to show that Andi chose a man that gives back to his community and his friends. For the sharp-eyed, that was the first mention of Veronica and Josh being in the same room together outside of work. Did they meet? Did they talk to each other? We'll see. I'm re-writing parts of the Stormwatch series to bring its timeline into line with Andi's Dream's and We're a Wonderful Wife's timeline.
And that was it. I was done... I was happy. I could look forward to new and exciting projects, except for the multitudes at my door with pitchforks and torches demanding "MORE!"
So I made more...
Somehow the series data for All Aboard Andi's Dream is broken. I have complained and reported it, hopefully "management" will get it fixed. I have the series listed on my Publications page, but the series information was deleted from most of the story pages, but the final few chapters have series data - weird.
All Aboard Andi's Dream was written in chapters. I don't enjoy doing that because many readers will generally hop on Chapter 1 and ignore the rest. If you publish the chapters as individual stories, you get more readers, but you have to do a lot of annoying exposition. The series option will keep the stories in order, if it is working.
All Aboard Andi's Dream Ch. 01
All Aboard Andi's Dream Ch. 02
All Aboard Andi's Dream Ch. 03
All Aboard Andi's Dream Ch. 04
All Aboard Andi's Dream Ch. 05
All Aboard Andi's Dream Ch. 06
These chapters were crafted from bits and pieces and notes of what I wrote for Our First Year. Paul and Andi and the twins take Gus, Lucy, John, and Macy out for a boat ride. This was fun to write. I don't remember why I chose the Riviera 72 Sports/Motor Yacht, but it's a beautiful boat and I loved researching that beast. They end up rescuing a family whose boat sank under mysterious circumstances. Trying to hide from the overeager press corps and possibly the people who sabotaged that sailboat (a story line I didn't stress), they were invited by Judge Nicoletta Atherton and her husband Donald to come hide on their private island somewhere near the Bahamas (or near the Obamas as the twins would say). We learn how horribly Frank treated Andi and we learn about the Twins' father. Yi shows that she's a hell of a fisherman and returns to WNY with the family as governess and chef and she meets Kenny.
All Aboard Andi's Dream Ch. 07
This was a fun one to write. I've lived in every area described in this cross-country trip and I have driven every inch of the entire trip this family took, multiple times. They fly to Minot, ND, where we meet Paul's old friend Colonel Jacquette Davis. The careful reader will notice that Paul is a bit quiet about what went on with him and Jacqui. From there they drive to Bismark to visit Andi's grandparents, Elli and Knute Olson. From there, they travel through the Black Hills to Denver, where they clean out Andi's apartment and tow her "Volkswagen" back to Western New York. (It's not a Volkswagen) Soon as they arrive home, Andi and Macy have big news for Paul and John.
All Aboard Andi's Dream Ch. 08
I loved writing every single word of this story, The Brother's Jarecki. It starts with eleven-year-old Paul walking home from school on a wet rainy WNY day. Their family is in dire financial straits and living in "the projects" of Tiorunda. On his way home Paul was attacked by class bullies (due to his intellect and skipping grades he's several years younger than the rest of his classmates) and he gets home to find his little brother 4 year old John locked out of the house by an alcoholic babysitter. Paul feeds his starving brother the only way he could and was caught by Mama Giardino. We meet John and Paul's parents, Cecil and Katarina Jarecki, and we find out where Paul gets his ability to come up with interesting plots and plans.
Sadly, Paul and John grew apart, Paul married Melony, and John eventually went to seminary. When he loses his faith, the first person he turns to was Paul, who put him on the path to becoming a minister. I will not give it all away, but there are some horribly sad scenes here... and a very moving reunion. I don't know where this story came from, it just demanded me to write it. I did this chapter in just a couple of days. The story ends happily at the end of Chapter 7 with Macy and Andi revealing their secret.
All Aboard Andi's Dream Ch. 09
Springtime in Springville! With everyone home, Andi's "Volkswagen" and Macy's spider get cleaned up at Jarecki Motors, Lucy and Gus's romance continues, and Lucy gets the hot car bug and buys an awesome ride herself. Andi has another strangely prophetic dream and takes Paul to Ellicottville to have a last talk with his wife, a talk that a man named Buzz denied him. Paul's history with Melony is put to rest (for now) and Andi is treated to one of the greatest treats in Western New York - Opening Day at Salen's Field!
All Aboard Andi's Dream Ch. 10
This is the story of Marie Tremblay. Marie was raised in a fishing village on the extreme eastern edge of Quebec by her "Father" and her two "Brothers." Their town was remote and isolated. There is no way to drive from there to any major town in Quebec. You'd have to travel east into Labrador, then to Newfoundland and at some point take a boat up the St. Lawrence river. Marie was done with being the only black girl for hundreds of kilometers around and she was the target of hate, so she ran away. She had seen an add for modeling opportunities in Montreal and eventually makes it to Montreal only to find out the modeling job she was counting on was a porn shoot.
Poor, homeless, and 15-years-old, Marie was taken in by Romée Beaulieu who ran a proper modeling agency and within two years, Macy was the toast of the town. She changed her name from Marie Tremblay to Marie-Claude Solange Dagenais and was toasted on the catwalk in Montreal, Denver, New York, London, Paris. However, jealousy reared its ugly head, and another model tried to take Macy out. After recovering from the drugs she was slipped, she ended up in a divinity school hiding from the world that hated her and eventually became a professor. She was assigned a short, smiling American student as a doctoral candidate and she hated Americans as much as she hated speaking English. She did everything she could to wipe that smile off his face, including marrying him. His nickname for her was Macy.
I loved this chapter more than the rest of the story. I love the romance between John and Macy; I love the interplay between Macy and Paul and John's folks Katarina and Cyryl (Cecil) Jarecki. It was fun to write about Macy's shock when she discovered every American wasn't out to rape and shoot her. I really loved writing about John and Macy preparing for his first sermon in Springville. Best of all, I loved writing about the fact that these two lovers were failures in bed. They had to learn how to properly please each other as they grew, that they weren't sexual superheroes like almost every character in Literotica's catalogue. They had to figure it out. As a story, I think this was one of my best, along with The Brothers Jarecki.
All Aboard Andi's Dream Ch. 11
Paul builds John and Macy a cabin, and they all help with the immense garden. We learn more about Katarina and Cecil, especially Katarina's love of knitting. Paul finally gets his lung condition looked at in a respiratory hospital. Andi and Lucy open their clinic, but the job is getting difficult with the baby getting in the way. Paul invites Heather to come live with them to help Andi with the baby. Paul takes John, Heather, and the twins on the Maid of the Mist while Yi goes out on a date and is attacked. She finally looks at Kenny with a different light in her eyes. Gus proposes to Lucy.
All was going so well. Then Frank reappears and tries to kill Andi, but John gets in the way.
All Aboard Andi's Dream Ch. 12
Paul is in shock, but he's got to keep going while his pregnant wife and his brother are being operated on. His job is to keep Macy, the church board, and John's congregation happy. Frank was placed in a high security prison awaiting trial for two counts of attempted vehicular homicide and multiple counts of rape, prostitution, and sex trafficking when Judge Nicoletta came to visit him and was able to convince him that a guilty plea would keep certain information from reaching Russian mobsters. Andi and John are released from the hospital and Paul makes an enormous bedroom for John and Macy in his library. At the height of a blizzard, Andi and Macy go into labor.
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Chapter 12 was intended to be the end of the story, and in fact is the last part of the novelized story, but again the pitchfork and torch wielding throngs swarmed the palisades and battered the gates demanding that the story be continued. Ok, there are a few loose ends, I'll admit, so the story continues:
All Aboard Andi's Dream Ch. 13
Macy and John have been living at Paul and Andi's house recovering from John's horrific injuries and Macy's childbirth. It's Thanksgiving and Paul is conflicted. Is he most thankful for his family and his new son? Or is he more thankful for the man that raped and killed his first wife was murdered in prison? It's almost time for Christmas and Lucy and Gus are planning their wedding.
Currently Andi's Dream is at 488,000 words and will pass the half million mark easily with the next chapter, which is being written as this essay is posted:
All Aboard Andi's Dream Ch. 14
Hopefully, you won't wait too long, but it's coming
- Paul finally hires a COO for Jarecki Motors if she survives her trial by fire
- Andi learns to sing
- Paul and Andi's Anniversary
- Daniel and Katarina's first Christmas
- Kenny & Yi's first Christmas together
All Aboard Andi's Dream Ch. 15
- Josh invites Paul, Andi, John, Macy, Danny and Katarina to his office party
- After hearing of Lanh's accident on Christmas Eve, Andi and Paul invite Don, Lanh, Kim-ly, on Andi's dream along with Josh, Veronica, Yi and Kenny on a cruise to Nisi Arcadia. Yes, you've heard this story before. Now hear it from Andi's point of view.
All Aboard Andi's Dream Ch. 16
- John and Macy give Paul and Andi a tour of Montreal in the Spring
- Don, Lanh, Kim-ly bring Danh to Western New York to talk with Veronica's boss about adopting a child.
So that's what I wrote, and what I am currently writing. Will I stop at 16 chapters? I don't see how. Paul still has to take Andi to a Buffalo Bills/Denver Broncos game. Josh and Veronica still have to be married in this corrected timeline.
So now it comes down to why. Why did I string together 450,000 words and keep going?
There's several reasons, number one being, I like to write. I'll do it all day long if I can, and often I do. If I'm working on a story line that I truly love, I'll start writing at 7:00 AM and finish at 11:00 PM. It's not like I have much else to do - I'm unemployed and unemployable. I love to ride my Ebike, but it's the rainy season, same as cutting the lawn with our cool zero turn lawn mower.
I have written my entire life. When the teacher assigned us an essay assignment, I was the nerd in the back shouting YES! Throughout my military career, I'd write short stories, poems, or filk (re-engineered song lyrics) to poke fun at our officers or our situation. As a civilian, I used to write humorous science fiction stories under the nom de plume PK Ammo Troop or PKAT, on the Sci Fi channel forum. So, when I went back to it and started writing again, I wrote Our First Year as an exercise. I did it to reacquaint myself with my word processor and to get the creative juices flowing.
It worked, and I put Our First Year aside and started working on A Krissmas Karole, but I returned to the pages of lit after 13 years with Serendipitous Liaison. Then, over 80 stories later, the chance to publish Our First Year arose, and it became Andi's Dream.
But why do I write? I don't do it for some lofty purpose. I would like to write a history of the Lehigh Valley Railroad's Niagara Falls branch, but even though I love that subject, it's not fun. Writing adventure, scifi, romance, erotica, that's fun. I spent far too long writing what an uncaring boss wanted. Now it's my turn, and your turn. Let me know what you would like to see. As long as it fits with my character's profile, I'll give it a whirl.