Still looking...

[AtlantaCarter]

I'm looking for a beta for a couple of things:

1) Mirror, Mirror: An in-progress novella, which is currently around 32,000 words (expect 45-50K in total). Due to the nature of the second chapter, I would ideally need a woman who has given birth. The story is in three parts

I. Mark Hopkins wakes up one morning and finds a beautiful naked woman staring back at him in the mirror, in fact any reflective surface - a pool of water, the glass of a shop window, even the bell of his trombone. Over the next several days, he finds his body slowly changing into that woman, and of course has to be very careful about standing near glass and mirrors. A mirrored wall in a bar is his nightmare for him. He also has seriously erotic dreams about being her every night (not described).

II. After he has fully transformed into the woman, he is convinced by a friend to go on a girl's night out for a swim. He dives into the pool and exchanges places with the woman in the mirror, Miranda, the name he has already started calling himself. It transpires that one of the effects of the erotic dreams (particularly the last one as his transformation becomes complete), he/she becomes pregnant. That, we learn from Miranda, who takes up the narration, is the whole point of the exercise. She is from a parallel universe, sort of a beta version of Eden, where there was no original sin (and no chance for it). Hence, Edam's 144,000 inhabitants are immortal (no birth, no death) and have a sympathetic connection to 144,000 "first children" of Eden, Mark being one of them. She is more-or-less his guardian angel, who spoke to him indirectly through dreams. She (with the collusion of The One, i.e. God to us) wants to bear a child, so she trades places with Mark. She is just as clueless about what it is to be a woman as he is. Eventually she has the child (this part isn't written yet) and has to return to Edam with her son.

III. Meanwhile, Mark (as Miranda) takes her place in Edam (all backstory) and bears a daughter in a universe that has never brought a child into its world. Miranda wasn't expecting this, thinking that it was impossible. They had to be identical to switch, and therefore both had to be pregnant with Mark's seed. When they trade back, the child must stay with Miranda in her universe. They are to become the new Adam and Eve (or actually Jakob and Callie). I've only written the first 1000 words of this part so far, so I don't know who deeply I'll get into it. Coincidentally, while Mark was away his wife died (at the moment of Callie and Jakob's birth) - there is more to that plot line, but I won't go into it here.



2) Diary of an Affair: This is a short novel I wrote a few years ago and serialized on the WritersCafe before it trashed everyone's accounts. I never re-posted it. Hence, it is in a fairly advanced stage. What I need here is a final editing as well as a sense reading to decide whether there is just too much sex in it (some is fantasy-ish sex) and while it stops short of a gang bang, there is one day when he has territorial-sex with his wife (she thinks he's about to jet off to see his "mistress"), followed by sex with his real mistress who he has only known for a week, then he flies to Chicago and (accidentally?) has sex for the first time with the woman his wife thought was his mistress. (Coincidentally, his wife has been having an affair for six years and is pregnant.) Yes, it gets complicated. Two more women (his astral other-half, and a partner from a previous life), as well has the true love of his life all get into the act eventually. It does seem ridiculous at times, but all (except for his wife) have a history with him in previous lives and are vying for his favor. Comments that I've gotten on it - they really hate the protagonist for most of the story, but in the end he makes good. On the surface, it's all about his escapades, but in the end it is all about reaching one's potential through finding the correct balance in life. It's written as a diary, with revisionist "afterwords" written by two of his "lovers" after his death. (He develops a cult following.)

My intention is to self-publish the latter under a pseudonym, probably something like Sean Anthony Carter, or something like that. I'm still trying to decide on the first. I may publish it with a couple shorter stories, also psuedo-bibilical/mystical in content, including It's Got to Get Better (Than This) (based on Job) which was supposed to be published in a collection, but that never happened, or with Forgetting (my Adam and Eve story, but that needs significant editing, and is 170 pp on it's own - it is a more logical pairing). That may be under my real name; the jury is still out.

Anyone interested?