Hi all
I was reveling in a welcomed respite from winter the other day and I think it affected my thought processes.
I believe I've been clear about my feelings in regard to the work it takes to get a story ready for SOL. I'm not talking about just stringing the words together. I'm talking about the countless hours the editor spends fixing my stupid mistakes; the time the proofreaders spend fixing my stupid mistakes that slipped passed the editor because his correction fingers got tired; or the time I spend going back through rewriting sections that the editor found awkward, boring or just plain ill-conceived.
After all that, I still have to spend time with each file getting formatted properly, checking to make sure I've last accessed the file on a word processing program that doesn't turn punctuation into gibberish and giving it a final look to ensure I didn't simply end a chapter in the middle of a paragraph. I would be much happier just posting the entire file on a shareware site and letting you cull your way through it on your own.
And yet a strange thought popped into my head. I have a story that is perfect for FineStories. It contains no overt sex and it probably fits better there. At the same time, I have 120 chapters done for a story that can be posted solely on StoriesOnline. I thought to myself, "Self, why I don't I post them both at the same time."
Then I shook my head to clear the cobwebs and to shake that asinine notion right out of my noggin. There is no way in hell I'm going to try to keep up any sort of posting schedule on two stories on two different sites at one time. I almost left the house without pants last week (although I did have on long underwear because it was Brrr-freaking-cold - again!) so I recognize my limitations.
But that left me to wonder: What are the readers' feelings about FineStories? Personally, I enjoy it (although I don't access it very frequently). I don't want to alienate the readers who have followed me for years by forcing them to move to a different site to find my work but, at the same time, I'd like to support it as much as I can.
I don't want to post the same story on two sites at the same time. I will refer you back to the pants incident.
I'd like to know how many SOL readers have a membership at FineStories and how pissed off my regular readers would be if I moved one of my stories there exclusively.
I'd appreciate any comments from readers or insights from other writers.
Given the amazing number of replies from people willing to cull through my older stories for errors, I'd thought this might be the perfect spot to solicit input.
Thanks,
Jay C.