Not dropped, not even on real hiatus

Just to clarify.

The story is not dropped, and I haven't even really put it on hiatus.

Working as a teacher I'm currently switching from on-site lectures to running them all remote. That comes with some rather heavy re-planning of both content and methods used. All in all I'm currently swamped with handling moving from classroom education to an on-line one.

Another week or so should see both me and my students accustomed to the new normality, in as much as anything could be called normal at the moment.

Not dropped

I realised I should probably have written this earlier.

The story is most definitely not dropped, but I'm currently swamped with work. This will last for another week or so, after which I'll have the time needed to continue writing.

Patreon

After some pushing I finally opened up a patreon page.

https://www.patreon.com/StenDuring

Not dropped

In case anyone wonders. No, I haven't dropped the story. I'm just taking the time between book four and book five to clean up the second half of book three.

The power of visibility

I've uploaded Transition and Restart to a number of sites catering to web novels in different formats.

It didn't take long until I saw how you basically need to be popular (locally) in order to become popular. That catch 22 situation is best described as 'being lucky'.

As can be seen on the top six list on GetInkspired I got lucky, and those four titles have been sitting there since October 2015 or so.

One site where Transition and Restart is a major mismatch given the average demographics is RoyalRoadLegends, where my story has lived a life with very few views compared to the average. Well, it still does. The first book managed to collect an average of around 500 views per chapter from August 2015 to May 2016, which is pretty bad performance.

Enter one review that climbed into the toplist of reviews. In less than two weeks that volume climbed to a bit above 700 views per chapter, which still represents a pretty poor performance. However, compared to its prior performance that's a rather steep climb, which goes to prove how important visibility is to garner visibility.

I expect the number of new views per chapter to drop down to one or two per week immediately following that review dropping out of the toplist.

Scope and format

Transition and Restart has found its format, which is the same as sayint that I've found a format. Last time I checked the story didn't write itself.

Frame, prologue, frame, chapter one, and then the coupling of frames and chapters until I have six chapters after which it's time for an epilogue.

And each chapter is around ten k words long and usually split into ten one k chunks with a POV-shift between chunks.

While on the long side for an LN I'm starting to see why anyone would run with a fixed format like this. No matter how hard it is for the reader to get into the story -- when you do you'll experience cadence of a kind.

Thus I've come to understand that the writer's contract with the reader can include scoping and narrative formatting.

RoyalRoadLegend

There's a major overhaul going on at RRL. If you belong to the group who read Transition and Restart there it's currently basically not doable.

Let them sort the issues out after the site upgrade.

Slow postings

In Sweden the Christmas and New Years' holidays translate into a two week long vacation. This time it's almost three weeks.

With three kids not going to school or daycare there's very little time for me to sit down and write, and hence I won't be able to publish a chunk every second day.

We're currently halfway through chapter four, which leaves about 25K words before the end of Wingman Blues. The volume should end around mid October in the fiction world.

Wattpad and reads

Sometimes I wonder why I even bother. The number of reads I receive on Wattpad is close to zero. But then I remember that it's the place with the best reader interface -- not that a measurable number of people use it as far as my stories are concerned.

The best site in terms of reads for me is Inkspired. All my stories, including the short, get hit more or less every day.

Second to that site is RoyalRoadl with a decent readership.

This blog only comes in at third place.

I've abandoned Jukepop and Inkitt as feeding a zero readership on sites with only average quality reading-tools seems like a total waste of effort.

And then there is Wattpad again. Probably the largest of all publishing sites. It's got a neat community for writers, and as far as I go it seems to be the primary benefit. I can test passages.

But reads...

Inkspired funny.

Seems I keep getting an absurd percentage of reads on this site. While a small one its 'popular' section definitely strokes my ego.

Obviously I need to take into account that I receive next to no readers elsewhere.

I'll return with a new chunk from Wingman Blues here soon.

End of book two

The epilogue concludes book two. While I've started writing book three updates will come more slowly from now on. Reality knocks on my door, and I can't keep up the pace.

Some of the writing I do will also be a refactoring of book one and two. Those updates won't go here, apart from the collection of full chapters. I'll post those to Wattpad and Inkspired.

Talking about Inkspired. It would seem that's the site where I currently have a solid readership. Arrivals, The Billion Dollar Empress and The Taleweaver are all in the top five popular reads there. Happy camper here.

And another strange insert.

From reader input I've come to understand that a clearer hand-off between book and book two is a wish. Hence I'm posting a short epilogue to book one as the next post.

Fifteen minutes

Don't even know if 'fame' is a proper term, but whatever it is it's hardly to be lasting.

On one of the publishing sites I use book one, Arrivals, just hit the top spot in terms of reads. I readily admit I find this enjoyable and a bit fun as well.

See more at GetInkspired.

Full chapter done

And that ends chapter four of book two.

I've added another full chapter to the list, and tomorrow we start with one of the short short frame pieces introducing chapter five.

Back from my hike

And that means I'll resume posting from tomorrow.

After tomorrow we're at the end of chapter four, so there will be a new full chapter page posted as well.

Chapter five is written and I've started on chapter six which concludes The Billion Dollar Empress.

When I'm done posting BDE I'll take break for revisions of Arrivals and BDE before starting on book three, which will probably be named Wingman Blues.

Another gap in updates

Next week I'm going for a shorter cross-country trek, but I'll be off-line during those days. After tomorrow's post there's likely to be a gap until Thursday before the next.

Chapter three done

The last post concludes chapter three. I've uploaded the full chapter here, but as ususal I advice you to read those at Wattpad where I don't have the formatting issues I have here.

Ending chapter three leaves us midway into book two. Knowing where I'm at writing the story right now it seems unlikely book two will see much of school. I'll see how I make a decent handoff between book two and book three. After all that's a month or so in the future given my current publishing velocity, and editing issues makes it less than likely that I'll keep the current tempo up.

Getinkspired gets their shit in order

Seems the crew at getinkspired finally got their editor working as it should. It'll take most of the formatting you had in your original document. Gone are the days of manually reinserting all italics for inner monologue.

It's a cosy little place without an attached comunity. You pretty much just publish your story there and hope it gets read.

Seems they have an iPhone app for those of you who dislike wattpad but would want to read from your phone anyway. No app for android though.

Chapter two done

The last chunk concludes chapter two. I have added the full chapter as a page.

As usual I advice you to read it on wattpad, even if it comes at a cost of a one day delay.

I've decided to post all of chapter three (book two) before I start working on editing what's already posted. That edit will affect all of book one. While nothing in the story as such will change I will adress some issues that have surfaced from reader input. Those changes will only show in the full chapters here, but I will migrate those changes to the serial installation on wattpad, and possibly on getinkspired as well.

Those edits will implement have two results. The obvious one is that the running (old) posts here will no longer reflect the 'official' text. The other is that I'll drop some of the stylistic 'rules' for Light Novels. While Transition and Restart will continue to be heavy on dialogue, I'm inserting exposition to a degree where the text reads more like what a westerner (reader of English) would expect.

For those of you who prefer the talking heads style, I apologise. For the rest, I'm very grateful for the input that points in the direction I'm taking. Those stylistic changes should aready show in book two.

Lastly, when I start publishing book three I'll do a similar edit to book two. It seems I've lost control of the pacing in the story to the degree where it's hard to understand what's happening. You'll have to roll with it for the time being. Sorry about that.

Interfering story

Frays will be given a few minor edits while I upload it here. I hadn't planned to give the novel any more thought, but while giving it a last proofreading I saw some narrative parts which could have been done better from the beginning.

Now those small changes call for attention later in the book, and it seems I'll have to revise one the fly.

This might result in me having to stop publishing daily, and it most certainly interferes with the publishing schedule for Transition. I'll see how I handle this and let you know.

What's the meaning of the above? Well, it's what I had to post at Wattpad when I realised I was heading into editing mode for one of my old novels, Frays in the Weave.

In one way or another that editing time will have to come from somewhere, and somewhere is when I'm writing Transition and Restart. I'm not entirely clear how to juggle this dilemma. Vacation helps, but it's still a substantial amount of work.

Most likely I'll do a refactoring of Transition while at it, and if so my posting schedule will be halved. Every second day.