I loved writing it and initially it was written with almost no planning at all. I just kind of dived off a cliff every morning. A very odd experience with such a sprawling novel, and I probably won't repeat it, seeing as now I have too much of a universe. Too much planning/interweaving/making sure plots stay consistent! But you know how it is - you've got a big universe of stories, too.

I kept the language light because this was originally posted on Trekunited.com and they have a rather strict profanity filter. There's one point where I wanted to write - "the bed is hard on the left" and the damned thing wouldn't take it! I ended up writing something like "the harder side of the bed is on the left". Pretty funny since I wasn't even writing about anything racy! So, yeah, words like climax, pulse, arousal, etc., those were all to keep in line there.

I definitely use sex as a plot driver, perhaps more than I should, but Doug is absolutely driven by sex (as is the whole MU, far as I'm concerned), so he's going to mainly communicate that way, as do the other MU people. I love to write dialogue and use it for exposition - I dunno if you recall, but when Robert Scorpio interviewed me, he asked who I would want to direct my stuff, and I said Robert Altman. That's all due to his use of layered conversations, where people talk over each other and at cross-purposes sometimes.

I like a sprawling plot, kind of Dickensian in terms of having so many characters. In that topic about OCs, you can see I forget to mention all sorts of people, like Jennifer Crossman (who is obviously both here and in the MU). I also subscribe to the idea of - if you leave a loaded gun on a table in Act One, you'd better fire it in Act Two. Right now, you're at the point in the story where I'm piling up a bunch of guns on the table.

Thank you, thank you, I had had an awful day and your review completely and thoroughly turned my mood around! Hugs across the miles! :)