I am very likely dating myself with the Strong Bad Email reference for the title, but it's appropriate for something that I've been thinking about recently, which is the chapter-ending cliffhanger. I've been reading my kids a book that I loved growing up: the Worlds of Power novelization of the NES game Castlevania II: Simon's Quest. At the end of every chapter I tell them, "Stay tuned for partial excitement!" Writers like Dan Brown have structured nearly all of their books with a micro-cliffhanger at the end of each chapter to keep the reader engaged, and while that can work for thrillers I'm much less sure about SFF. I certainly don't write that way for my own books, and the ones I like to read didn't do that either. So why did I add that phrase when reading a children's chapter book? After thinking about it, I decided that I'm doing it to keep my kids entertained, and maybe myself too. The Worlds of Power books did not age well in terms of story, as much as it pains me to say it, so I need to inject my own style of humor.
The journey of a small press author is long, slow, and often pretty bleak in regards to screaming to the universe about your book and getting soul-shattering silence in return. That's why I've tried to really savor the little victories, as insignificant as they are, because writing novels is hard enough without adding expectations of notoriety (or even success). Something recent that made me smile was a couple people told me that the one of my books was checked out from their local library. After the goal of actually writing a book, the next goal was not to make money, but to simply get people to read it. Having someone check out my book, even when they have a whole library's worth to choose from, makes my day a little bit brighter.
My writing update for November is about what you'd expect for the start of the holiday season and the end of the year. Family and work commitments all seem to bunch up, so anything absolutely non-essential gets sidelined. My word count for the month was 5k words, which puts the manuscript total at 40k words. I have eight complete chapters, so I'm more than a third done and close to the mid-point turn in the story, but it still feels like I've got a long way to go before the exciting final bits happen at the end. I'm not one of those writers who gleefully tortures their characters through a long gauntlet of adversity for the sake of emotional impact. My protagonists have enough trouble with the one or two major challnges of the plot and don't need a new obstacle introduced every couple of chapters.
I've got a couple book fair / festival applications pending, as well some bloggers potentially interested in The Magic of Deceit, so things are plugging along on the "business of being a writer" front. If there are any successes I'll share them in the next update, along hopefully with the release date for Shapers of Worlds Volume V.
Thanks for stopping by.
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