Hand Grenades

Current Wordcount of Autumnveil: ~194,000
Playing: Torchlight 2
Listening to: The Civil Wars
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A STORY

So I would like to tell you what happened.

But before anything else, I would be grateful for you to become a follower of this blog. I'm  not asking you to read it every day (or at all, even). The mere fact of you following makes a difference. After you read the rest of this post, you'll see why I'm asking for your help in this.

Thanks.

So anyway, here's what happened.

I was minding my own business, checking the prices on sloth-themed merchandise online, when I started thinking about the Blogosphere. Specifically, I was thinking about how I kind of hate the Blogosphere. Why?

On the few occasions I've peeked into it, it has shown itself to be overflowing with purposely-controversial rhetoric, people hiding behind their anonymity, strategically placed up-voters and down-voters, professional trolls, and other shenanigans. As a storyteller, I believe my first and most important task is to craft a captivating tale with lovable characters that keeps readers turning those pages, yet as I edge closer and closer to the completion of my novel, I have to start asking myself practical questions about marketing and social networking.

The fact of the matter is it's 2013, I'm an unpublished novelist, and if I want to achieve some marginal level of success when it comes to getting people to buy Autumnveil, I need to have a base of interested people. Being present in the Blogosphere is a necessary factor in that.

So I was lamenting about this to a friend, and he told me something about bungholes, opinions, and how we all have bungholes and opinions. By this he meant that I needed to shut up and accept the reality that blogging is necessary if I want to sell more than 115 copies of Autumnveil. Since I've spent somewhere between 5,000-6,000 hours thinking about the story, researching it, and working on it since 2009, I suppose blogging is a small price to pay for getting people interested.

What I mean to say by all of this is that to now, this blog has mainly been devoted to writing updates about the Ark Series, and every once in a while, some sort of reflection about writing as a craft, things I've learned, etc. From now on, though, I'm going to be more intentional about using this blog as an outlet for discussions about writing and critiquing as crafts and chronicling my personal journey of seeking house-sponsored, agent-initiated, my-novel-is-actually-being-read  publishing.

WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?

• I will continue to write in this blog with novel updates, when I feel they are appropriate.
• On a weekly basis, I will post about the writing/critiquing crafts and/or about my journey through the publishing process.

HOW YOU CAN HELP ME

In my journey to acquire a following, I will need a bit of social networking help. Are you a pal of mine? I reckon you are. It would mean a lot to me if you would follow this blog. You don't have to read it, but if you do read it, a one or two sentence reply once-in-a-while would not only boost my confidence, but also my reach. If you are feeling particularly generous, you could help by sharing my posts from time-to-time. If you're a fellow writer, you probably have a lot more power to these ends than my friends and family following me to be supportive.

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REGARDING AUTUMNVEIL,

I've penned a couple thousand words since my previous update. It's been a while since I wrote a Nonagon Seven chapter, and since she is the new set of eyes through which we see our antagonist, The Captain, I decided to interrupt the dialogue-heavy chapter set of 49-51. POV shifts naturally create temporal shifts in the minds of audiences, which was necessary at that point.

Nonagon Seven's chapters often function to break the action of the main plot, especially coming out of Book II. I've been pondering for a while what we're going to do with her long-term. She herself was born organically, and I get the feeling that I will know what to do with her when the time is right.

If you've been with me this long, you've got my love.

-D

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