Charlie Foxtrot: Blog

I was surprised to hear such a strong request to finish the story and then post. It was not what I was expecting. With over 100 responses, roughly 60% asked that I complete the story, but make more frequent blog updates on status. Of course, that means that roughly 40% of you want me to post more sooner, rather than later.

While I may still hit my original plan to be ready to start posting in the "spring", knowing that a majority readers willing to offer me feedback would prefer for the story to be "done" first is encouraging.

So here is my plan:

1) I will continue writing and editing for the remainder of April and into May.

2) If I reach May 17th and am not done writing, I'll post Chapters 20-27 to move the plot forward and keep you all interested. As I stated in the previous blog posting, those chapters complete a significant arc in Paul and Jeryl's story.

3) If I have not begun posting on a regular schedule before the end of spring (June 21st), I will put up the entire story once it is complete.


Again, my goal is to get on a regular posting schedule sometime in May. Hopefully these publicly shared milestones will be a sufficient goad to keep me on track.

Thanks again for all the feedback and encouragement.

-Charlie

(4/15/2014 - working on chapter 31 with 120,000 words written)

Thanks to all the readers who continue to ask (or hint at asking) if book two is on track to begin posting at the end of April or early May.

As with so many things, the answer is "yes" and "no".

Let me explain....

I know the ending of the story and it is written in draft form. I thought book two would move through Paul and Jeryl's college years and beyond by carefully stepping through a fairly complete series of vignettes and scenes from their life together.

However, the characters seem to have developed minds of their own, and added many more scenes to their story. They get themselves into situations that require a lot more narrative and dialog to resolve than I originally estimated.

I'm currently at 120,000 words and it feels like I'm only half-way to the ending I had planned.

Philosophically, I promised myself I would only begin posting a story when it was completely written so I would not aggravate my readers or run the risk of having a story lapse into "incomplete and inactive" status. The next seven chapters form a complete story arc, but are not the end of the story. Those chapters have been edited and proofed and are ready to begin posting while the next five chapters are still in a rawer form. At the least, I have 6 to 8 more chapters to go.

So, I am trying to decide if it makes sense to post chapters 20 through 27 (80,000 words), call it book two, and then figure out the completion timeline for book 3.

The downside of this approach is that I've recently begun a new job that could easily delay the completion of the overall story significantly (September), if I don't have the goad of my promise to finish the story this spring, which is technically June 21st. Since starting the new gig, I'm only able to get 5,000 to 7,000 words a week written. At this pace, if the entire story of book 2 as originally planned is going to be 200,000 words, I will need nearly three months to complete (July).
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So, in summary, can you let me know if you would rather:

A) Be able to read the next 80,000 words with an as yet undetermined publishing schedule on the remainder of the story, or

B) See some slippage in the start of posting (May at the earliest, mid-June likely), but have a complete story once I resume posting.

I suspect I know what the response will be, but dislike making assumptions when it is so easy to ask all you good readers for your input.

Thanks for reading, and please let me know your opinions.

-Charlie

Book Two of "A New Past" has just passed 100,000 words and is about half done. While some of the writing has gone more slowly than I anticipated, I still believe I am on track to begin posting at the end of April or beginning of May.

Thanks for all of the continued feedback. I hope the sequel will not disappoint.

Thanks for reading,

-Charlie

Chapter 19 in "A New Past" has been submitted for posting and should be up soon. It is the end of book 1 in Paul's tale. I hope you have enjoyed the story. I did not expect the overwhelmingly response the story has received.

Thank you to all the readers and other authors who took the time to read and send me feedback and encouragement. I tried to respond to as many of you as possible. For those of you who asked a question but did not receive a reply, please check your email settings/proxies. I received several bounce-backs from various email providers for undeliverable email. Those of you that provided feedback anonymously, please know that I did read everything I received.

I have gotten a tremendous amount of technical feedback on some details I missed, or deliberately side-stepped or ignored. Many, but not all, of the concerns raised I had consciously ignored or cut out more detailed explanations for because I felt it slowed the narrative too much. Personally, I find myself skipping huge section of explanatory text when I read, so I tried to keep it to the minimum. Hopefully I cut judiciously and not too much was lost.

Paul and Jeryl's story continues in book 2, which is plotted out and about 25% written. However, I won't begin posting until I have the story complete and at least the first few rounds of proofreading done. Book 2 is proving to be more challenging to write since the timeline has begun diverging from what we know to be our past. Additionally, I am trying to cover a greater span of time in roughly the same number of words. As a result, I'm having to be more careful with my research and descriptions to explain something that is at least possible, even if not probable.

I'm hoping to begin posting in the late spring, but real life may hold that up. I will try to update this blog once I have a posting schedule set.

Thanks again for reading,

-Charlie