Charlie Foxtrot: Blog

Actually, my health is fine, but I have been extremely busy at work with limited writing time as I tried to plot myself out of a corner my characters had worked themselves into. I have finally (I think) gotten them straightened out and am starting to make progress on moving the story in the direction I wanted. I'm not going to promise when I will begin posting the next sections, but wanted to let everyone know that progress is being made. I know the ending of the story, but side-trips, twists, and turns had me going in a different and less interesting direction.

Thanks for your patience and thanks for reading.

-Charlie

I am still working on Book 2 of Paul & Jeryl's story. I just decided to re-write three chapters (33-36) which will probably take me well into the summer for finishing things up. Writing has been going slow, but I want the story arc to make sense and get the ending I have in mind.

I will try to be better about posting updates, but no promises. Once I have the story complete, I will post it in its entirety.

Thanks for reading,

-Charlie

(6/21/2014 - working on chapter 33 - the second time - with 133,000 words written)

They should be up soon. I hope you all enjoy and thank you for your patience.

I am working toward the conclusion and am guardedly optimistic that I will finish in mid-June as previously planned. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the continued story of Paul & Jeryl.

Thanks to my editors who hopefully helped minimize the typos and editing issues in these chapters.

Thanks for reading,

-Charlie Foxtrot

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).
.
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