When “Done” Isn’t “Done”
Hide and Seek is done. Well, very nearly, anyways.
Last night I wrote, and today I posted, the final chapter in my longest Special People story arc yet. It was Chapter 55, and the total length of the story is about 50,000 words.
I have a brief epilogue to write, containing one final scene, and then that'll be that. The story will be finished and I can move on.
Except not quite.
My long-term goal with Special People is to package up the story arcs into (self-)publishable, printable books and sell them through my Store, alongside my other writing. Why hasn't that happened yet? After all, I'd already completed three story arcs before I even started Hide and Seek.
Well, put simply, it's because those stories aren't ready to publish. It isn't enough for me to wrap up the serialization of the story and get every chapter up on the website; I also have to deal with editing and, in some cases, rewriting, and there's nothing that shuts down my creative urges like rewriting... Yuck.
Of the stories I've written for Special People so far, I'd say Hide and Seek is maybe in the most publishable shape, though Who Killed Walter Carton? came out pretty decently, too. (Trends suggest that I'm getting better over time!) But before I can release Hide and Seek as a novel, I know for sure that there's one specific chapter I have to significantly rewrite, because I forgot to factor in the use of a character's special ability, and I'm pretty certain there are a variety of problems with the continuity and flow of the story, simply due to the fact that my writing time was spread out over such a long time period. I guarantee I've forgotten some of the details of the early story, and made some blunders in the later chapters because of it.
Then, on top of all that, I have to consider whether it would even make sense to publish Hide and Seek before putting out the arcs that came before it. This is a tricky one, because Hide and Seek actually takes place 10 years before Hands-On and King of the Dark, and doesn't require knowledge of those stories, but I feel like those earlier arcs may do a better job of introducing the reader to the Special People "universe" and its primary character(s).
If I decide that I want to publish the stories in the order I wrote them, that means I have to revisit my plans to rewrite Hands-On and King of the Dark. There's a great road plan laid out for me to do so, but it's going to take time to do it, and like I said, that doesn't exactly get my creative juices flowing.
Thankfully, I'm going to have a month to work through whichever set of edits or rewrites I decide to pursue, while the comic, Change, gets posted. I'll keep everyone updated on my plans as and when I make any decisions.
An Update on This; an Update on That
Boy, it's been a while since I wrote a blog post. I haven't felt the need to post any "life updates", because Larissa has been doing such a great job of that over on her blog (a far better job than I could hope to do, in fact). She posts all kinds of photos and everything!
On the writing front, my output has obviously decreased significantly since the first half of 2012, so I haven't had much to update there, either. I'm still putting out a chapter each week for Special People, though I took a break over Christmas, but any SP-related news items that come up get posted on that site, not here. (You should probably follow along over there, by the way. There's been more progress on the comic project lately, and the current storyline is approaching its finale sequence.) I hope to put a few more interactive opportunities out there for people to get involved with soon, as well.
The Year of Stories is still on indefinite hiatus, and my Lucas Galloway novel is still somewhat in limbo. I don't have the time or creative energy available to me right now to work on multiple projects at once, so in order for me to return to either of those I think I'm going to have to take a break for Special People, which is perhaps something I'll do while the comic is posting, whenever that happens to be.
Something I really should get around to doing soon is compiling 50-Word Stories: Volume Three. All of the material exists on the site already, and I have the cover art, etc., so I just need to choose which stories to include, put the cover and some sort of essay together, and release it. I've been putting it off far too long, and it's about time it went on my actual To-Do List. If I haven't gotten it done by mid-February, someone give my a kick!
Beyond all of these things, life rolls on. I finished Volume 1 of Don Quixote last week, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I want to wait until I've read Volume 2 before adding it to my 50 Best Novels list; I've heard that the second volume takes on a somewhat different tone than the first, and I think that may affect how highly I rank it. I wouldn't be surprised to see it land in the top 10 eventually, though.
There are plenty more books out there, including several on my shelves, that I'd like to get around to reading, and I'm going to try to share a few thoughts on them as I finish each one, if for no other reason than to make better use of this space, so that it doesn't sit quite so idle, and also to get my brain and fingers used to more frequent writing again.
P.S. Hockey is back! Hooray!
My Authorial State of Being
What have I been up to lately? My blog hasn't been very revealing on that front, so here's an attempt to shed some light on my current authorial state of being.
You may have noticed that my fiction output has dropped off dramatically over the past couple of months. There are multiple reasons for that. Losing Freight ended, I completed Year Three of Fifty-Word Stories, and I took a break from the Year of Stories to recharge my batteries. Basically, the natural endings of a couple of projects coincided with some creative burnout. Any reasonable person could have seen that coming, probably: writing 12 unique posts per week (averaging over 8,000 words) across four different "franchises", while also trying to make headway on my novel, was way too much.
I think I can improve on my current output (I'm only working actively on Special People right now), but by the time I'm ready to ramp things up again, some life circumstances may change, and the time I have available for writing may be diminished. So I don't want to make any promises or predictions about timelines on different projects, but I do want to assure people that I intend to finish off the Year of Stories eventually, and put together Fifty-Word Stories: Volume Three, and do enough rewrites/tweaks to Losing Freight and the early Special People story arcs to make them publishable, and...
Yeah. See my problem?
I've also been podcasting every week (and then every other week, except for some recent inconsistencies), but I think it's time to put that little side project to rest. The effort-to-audience ratio isn't high enough to justify it right now.
I want to thank everyone for their support and patience while I try to get some of the big items on my to-do list checked off. I hope you're enjoying the new Special People content I put out twice a week, and as soon as I'm able to start getting more new stories out to you, I intend to do so. Until then, I'll do my best to keep everyone updated on my progress towards the various releases I'm working on.
Podcast: Happy Friday 021
Happy Friday! Here's episode 21 of my podcast.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Show Notes
0:01 Introduction.
0:27 News: WeSeWriMo; read my blog post for more details. Special People; Book situation and general update.
6:45 Entertainment: My thoughts on The Dark Knight Rises, Diablo 3 (9:45), and Guild Wars 2 (14:19).
17:51 Sign-off.
Questions
Got a question for me? Get your Q&A questions in by emailing tsevenhuysen@gmail.com or contacting me on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+. If I answer your question, you'll receive a $1 Store credit!
WeSeWriMo (Written for 1889 Labs)
I put together a blog post for 1889 Labs on the topic of WeSeWriMo. Here's a snippet from it, but feel free to head over there and read the full thing.
WeSeWriMo, which is run by the web serial community site EpiGuide, runs annually during the month of August. This will be its sixth straight year. WeSeWriMo was inspired by the ever-popular National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). But where NaNoWriMo challenges authors to complete a 50,000-word novel in a single month, WeSeWriMo is designed to be adaptable to the unique challenges and opportunities of web serialization. Just as web serials come in a wide variety of formats, genres, and release schedules, the goals WeSeWriMo participants can pursue are entirely customizable. The idea is that each participant can set their own targets, based on their regular output. The WeSeWriMo website suggests aiming for 150% of your regular output as an example target, so if you're used to releasing 4 episodes of your series in a month, try to write 6 episodes, instead, and add them to your backlog. Another goal could be to write 1,000 words per day for the entire month, or you could come up with something completely different to try for, as long as your target is "ambitious yet realistic".
In my own case, I've decided to set a couple of different types of targets. I normally write and post two 1,000-word chapters per week for Special People, but in my official registration post on the EpiGuide forums, I laid out the following three goals:
Goal #1: Write 15 chapters (15,000 words)
Goal #2: Outline the next story arc.
Goal #3: Prepare the first Special People book for release.
If you're interested in taking part in WeSeWriMo yourself, check out the official website.
Special People
Special People is serialized superhero fiction with a fistful of twists.
Special people have special problems.
BECOMING
The second quarter of the Year of Stories has arrived in print! BECOMING contains over 200 pages of great short stories for only $11.99. Order yours now.
DISCOVERY
Prefer the feel of paper to the look of a screen? DISCOVERY is the first quarterly Year of Stories print book. You get nearly 200 pages of exciting fiction for only $11.99! Grab your copy now.
Galloway’s Hunt
Galloway's Hunt is a novelette set in the world of Galloway's Voyage, my work-in-progress novel based on the same title character. Buy it now for only 99¢!
Losing Freight
Losing Freight is a serialized sci-fi novel where you get to vote on what happens next at the end of every page.