Author: Sterling
Title: AAAAA Guide to 'Sterling' and his stories aka "README"
file.
Summary: I've been at this for over 13 years now. Here
I offer my history of posting in various places and formats.

First posted 2/12/2023

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Complete set

As of today (2/12/2023) all of my erotic stories are listed in
this folder/directory of "Sterling" on ASSTR:

https://www.asstr.org/files/Authors/Sterling/

There are over 180 stories.

I have posted stories to other sites, but as of today every such
story is posted here too.

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Sex With Underage Partners is for Fantasy ONLY

A great many of my stories include underage characters in sexual
situations. In real life, all such relationships are wrong. There
is no excuse for them. If you yourself engage in such
relationships, I urge you in the strongest terms to STOP! And
while I of course have no knowledge or control of what any reader
does, if you are engaged in such relationships you are NOT
welcome to read my stories! They are not for you. Sex with
underage partners: Never do it!

I included a notice like this with some of my earlier stories,
but stopped after a while because it became tedious and emotionally
draining to consider the issue anew with each story, not because
I became one iota less committed to that position.

If you are committed to doing the right thing, but would like
some people to talk with anonymously who are in the same
situation, contact Virtuous Pedophiles (virped.org). They run a
helpful online message board support group.

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History of story posting

I posted to ASSTR from the beginning in 2009, but have also
posted my stories in other places.

Starting in 2009, I began posting in "Stories Online". In 2011,
in response to a change in Canadian law, the site stopped
accepting any stories with children under 14 engaged in sex. That
was most of my stories. I've continued to post there the ones
that qualify, but it is definitely a minority!

In 2015, I made an ASSTR web version with this same name "Sterling"
to access most of my stories, including sorting by
type/genre, and it is still there but will likely not be updated
in the same way. I have recently started porting over more recent
text-only stories to web format, but without trying to categorize them.

In 2017, the usual author tools for posting to ASSTR disappeared.
There was talk of "ftp access" but it sounded too complicated for
me. But in 2020 I put in the effort to figure out how it
worked (it's not that hard!), and as a result reposted stories here
to ASSTR that had gone to other places in the intervening three years.

One place was lolicit, a site that is primarily for "Lolicon"
cartoon drawings, but they also have a creative writing section.
Unfortunately, you must join and achieve a certain amount of
"reputation" before you can even see the stories there.

In 2019 I discovered Archive of Our Own (AO3), and posted there
enthusiastically for a while. The stories are still there as of
this date, but I am now a "read only" member and cannot say
anything, even in reply to comments.

Early on at ASSTR I made a "BARGAIN BASEMENT" subfolder for
stories I thought weren't up to par, but I have copied all of
them to this main folder. I decided they weren't of any
significantly inferior quality and saw no benefit in dividing
the stories in that way. I have left the old copies in that
"BARGAIN BASEMENT" folder in case some external link points to them.

There is a "story" titled "A SUBJECT INDEX" here which was last
updated in 2013. That was a long time ago now, but it presents a
fair picture of how the world looked to me then.

ASSTR used to provide weekly download reports, which I found very
valuable. Few readers bother to write to authors, so tracking
downloads is the best way to see how many people are
interested in your stories. In 2017 these stopped, and I miss
them. Before they stopped I had well over 2 million downloads of
all my stories collectively.

I try to include a "first posted" date for every story. It refers
to when the story was first posted anywhere, ignoring minor
changes or cross-posting that might imply a later date.

When I look back at my first year of posting, I see variety and
creativity -- perhaps too much. I also can see my own skills as a
writer getting better in that one year. So keep in mind that
stories with a "first posted" date before (say) September of 2010
are from a different era -- but I haven't deleted any of them.

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About Me, February 12, 2023

I am in my late 60s, a long-divorced dad. I regularly see my
two adult daughters, who are the joy of my life. I live in
the Boston area and am a retired software engineer.