tendertouch: Blog

I hope you've had a good 2022. For those who haven't, here's hoping you have a better 2023. For the authors out there, may your muse be in a good mood and bring you the inspiration you need for the words to flow.

or solstice associated celebration of your choice. I hope that the period until the sun is once again at its lowest ebb is better for you than it was for the previous thirteen moons.

While doing some editing on Protective Coloration I realized that three of the characters there would be seniors in the year following the events in the story, and at least two of those (Carol for engineering and Amanda for psychology) are planning to head off to college, probably Kyle as well.

What college would they likely attend? They'd have options, but three of the other characters (Tyler, Naomi and Mindy) are a year behind them. I'm thinking they'd want to stay local, then, so they could be home each day.

I never nailed down exactly where they lived, but in my mind I was placing them around Issaquah, a little south and east of Seattle. So we know at least one of the schools that they might consider would be the University of Washington.

Hmmm... who else do we know who'll be going to the UW? There won't be a Community type arrangement, but a friendship between the characters in the Seattle area feels likely, and I've gotten requests to follow up on both Protective Coloration and Charley and Claire.

That's the end of the line for this story, but what's next? Do you feel it's worth continuing? If you read this story, please let me know, one way or the other.

If you're a software engineer, or a civil engineer, please let me know how you feel I did with your fields. I know that, at least with the software side, I dramatically simplified some things, but I didn't want to put everyone else to sleep.

As always, if you find typos or grammatical issues, please let me know. If I agree with you I'll get it fixed and posted as quickly as I can.

I've gotten nothing done on the follow up story to Charley and Claire beyond thinking of some things that I'd like to see happen. Not one word has been written. The reason for this, is that I'm not much of a writer. (I can hear people in the background saying, "I could have told you that!")

What I mean, though, is that I lack discipline. As an example, I queued all of the chapters for Charley and Claire on October 15th. IIRC, the story I queued then was about 64,000 words. With two chapters left to post it's now over 80,000 words. By the time it's all posted it will have grown by roughly a third — after I'd originally decided it was complete. It's a better story now than it was then, I'm sure of that, but in some ways it's not the same story. I'm sure if my editors saw it now, they'd wonder what happened to the story they worked on.

All of that meant that I haven't had the time or focus to put toward the new story.

The obvious question is why I didn't just revise it up front. In fact, I did, multiple times before sending it off to my editors. But, for whatever reason, it wasn't until it started posting that I began to see it through different eyes and realize that the content needed some work. This wasn't the result of suggestions/complaints from readers, it was just reading it on my own. I don't understand why I seem to work that way, but it's been the case with both of my other longer stories, as well. I wonder if any other authors find themselves doing the same thing?

All of that to say that hopefully when it's all posted I can put it to bed in my mind and start on the sequel, though it may be some time before it's ready. I don't plan on working on anything else until it's done, but see above about discipline.

[Edit] Just before putting this blog up I updated the last two chapters that will post on Monday and Thursday. That's not to say they won't get updated again between now and the time they post, but if I drop dead tomorrow the story will be better than it would have been otherwise.