Something else that didn't work...Channillo.com

Last March I started posting a serialized version of a story I've worked on for years, actually two of them, that are set in the Galactic Battle Base environment. I posted a weekly chapter on Channillo.com. They were a new site that 'promised' to bring readers who were interested in following serialized literature.

Long story short...it didn't work for me. After seventeen weeks of posting a chapter each Sunday, I went from having four subscribers to two. I asked for analytics of how many people visited the site, clicked on my chapter descriptions, etc, but was told they wouldn't make that available.

My story, "Trigger Warnings" is about several of the inhabitants of the galactic battle base who suffer from some kind of mental or emotional, even physical, trauma and the mental challenges they have dealing with that. The main character cuts herself, (Non-Suicidal Self Injury - NSSI), and the boy she's falling for was a victim of childhood sexual abuse. (Note: There is no graphic content, but these are mature themes.)

I feel this is an important story and I was hoping to reach new audiences with it.

I've taken it off of Channillo and created another blog on this site where I will post chapters on a mostly weekly basis. The first chapter is up, if you're interested.

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Bio-rhythms, Editors, and Metaphors

I don't know what's wrong with me, recently. I've been short tempered, grumpy, and negative. I have some ideas, but they're kind of personal, and you don't really want to know that kind of stuff. Probably something to do with my Bio-rhythm and internal chemistry. (I don't really believe in Bio-rhythms. They were a thing in the 1980's.)

I got my manuscript of The Galactic Battle Base: Trigger Warnings back from the editor I sent it to. He obviously didn't get my vision and chopped it into pieces, deleting much of what I thought was the focus of the story.

Either, I didn't explain my story clearly enough--through dialog, description, and character conflict-- or he went into it expecting to get one thing and was confused by finding another. I imagine it is a combination of the two.

So, with my current state of mind, I was pretty much torqued. With each correction and deletion I found myself becoming angrier and angrier. I had set myself a pretty demanding goal of getting this book published by mid May, to take it with me to the LDStorymakers conference. I could see, from the amount of work he was suggesting I do and with all the other things I have going, this was either an unrealistic goal, or it was going to require a whole lot of effort.

Instead, I shifted gears. (That's a metaphor. Some say you shouldn't use them when writing science fiction because the readers will take them literally. I would have to say, "Come on. You read science fiction. You're supposed to be more intelligent than the average reader. Don't be stupid." While I have a car with a manual transmission, this doesn't mean that I actually went out and changed from fourth speed down to third. Maybe this is a worn out metaphor, which is a danger when using them, but I think it's pretty apt.)

My biggest projects at the moment are The Pariah podcast and gearing up for www.Channillo.com.

With the podcast I have to get another episode recorded and in the can this month. That shouldn't be too hard, I have the next episode edited and ready to record. But I also need to edit the first five episodes and publish them as a chapter book for Kindle and Print on Demand, as I've promised my www.patreon.com supporters. With Channillo I had said I would do chapters from the Galactic Battle Base story, "Family Ties" and publish an episode every two weeks. I've decided, instead, I will also use chapters from "Trigger Warnings" as well and change the output to ever week instead of biweekly. This will allow me to focus on that story, develop each chapter with its own story arch, and hopefully make it clearer to the reader. Once I've gone completely through the novel in this manner, I can resubmit it to an editor and see if I'm closer to publication as a separate novel.

Okay. I've gotten that off my chest. My self-doubts have been aired.  Now, if I can adjust my bio-rhythm or my internal chemistry I'll feel much more like the author I thought I was two weeks ago and get back to getting things done.

Where I'm at today.

I'm participating in the Clarion Write-a-thon. It's longer than Nanowrimo by ten days so I thought that setting a writing goal of 60k words would be easy. Turns out I may not reach my goal. I have written every day, but haven't gotten signed into the website every day. I'm at 52K words, but I've finished writing my novel. I was already at 22k when I started the write-a-thon and this draft stands at about 68K. It's more finished than any other first draft I've done--but then, it's not really my first draft. I wrote the story for Nanowrimo in 2010. I did change it a lot from the original draft. I also changed it in a major way from how I outlined it this time.

Two weeks back Dave Farland ran a special on his MyStoryDoctor.com classes. I couldn't resist and signed up for Story Mastery 1 and I'm really enjoying it. It's helping me focus on the many things I skip over when I write because I'm in such a hurry to get through the plot to the end. All the exercises I'm doing in this course, I'm applying to this Battle Base book, so that on my next edit I can really improve it.

I'm applying all the words I write in the exercises to my word goal, but I'll still be a couple thousand short.

Anyway. Things are looking up. 

Flypaper Boy is back from the editor and Dan Absolonsen is working on the cover art for it. 

Shooting Stars is still with the editor and Rebekah Durhey is working on the cover for that one.

The Galactic Battle Base is done with the first manuscript and waiting on me to go over the edits of Flypaper before I do my next pass. I hope to send GBB to Winston Crutchfield by October. My working title for that one has always been, "Galactic Battle Base: The Knife Cuts Two Ways". My protagonist is a girl who cuts herself, (Non Suicidal Self Injury - NSSI). I'm thinking of changing it to "GBB: Trigger Warning."

So the plan is still self publishing three novels by the end of the year.

I've started listening to the Self Publishing Podcast  by the authors of the book, "Write, Publish, Repeat". I believe what they are saying that the way to really grow a writing business is to write a series with a compelling first book. All three of my novels are firsts in a series, and GBB is a serial with stories all taking place on the Base, but with different people most the time. I say this because November is creeping up on  us all and I want to use Nanowrimo to knock out my "Next in a Series" to follow up something I've published. I'll need to outline it in October.

Next year, while my 2014 Nano is simmering, I want to do my first edit of the 2013 Nano, "The Pariah". So those are the two novels for publishing next year, The Pariah and Something Part 2.