Of pauses and portents

I want to thank all of you who have,

• taken the time to read the ongoing serialized gothic western I’ve been writing, and
• who have been willing to migrate over to the site I have dedicated to the tale

Your support, especially in light of my quirks, is absolutely inspiring.

I know, it is odd for someone to not track readers, not track likes and to put all comments into a non-interactive “guestbook” bucket. Plus, because I wanted to make the site more reader-focused than content-focused, I’ve added all other kinds of atypical wonk to the overall experience.

It means a lot to me that you put up my attempts to make a site more reader-friendly than blog-friendly.

I’ve been moving at a pretty good clip on Vengeance, My Heart since the first episode was published: roughly 5000-6000 words/week of publish-ready content. It satisfies me for pacing. And I think I can maintain something on that order moving forward. The story often writes itself; it is the editing and planning for each episode that slows me down, not a dearth of ideas.

But—

(I bet you saw that one coming…)

As the story has started to develop beyond simple “adventures” for episodes into actions with consequences (as it was always envisioned), it takes even more time to consider all of the possible consequences to my characters’ decisions.

So I’m, erm, a little on the behindses side. Episodes 7.1-7.4 are mostly written, it’s just missing enough of the later narrative to make me hesitate to publish 7.1 on Wednesday (following the established schedule) on the off-chance that the latter narrative in 7.3 or 7.4 makes the earlier narrative require changes to be consistent.

Therefore, I will be taking the rest of the week off from publishing VMH to give myself some time to get my ducks in a row.

So… Why am I writing things like the Fell Wynd stories and today’s Crossroads piece?

Well, the Crossroads piece was a planned part of VMH narrative since about Episode 3. And pushed back several times, if I’m being transparent. It roughly matches the overall narrative’s timeline. And there will be other Crossroads.

Fell Wynd stories, as I somewhat explained previously, are adjacent, standalone stories from the same world. Their connection will become apparent for regular readers eventually. I could have wrapped them into the current narrative like one of the Crossroads, but they fall out of the timeline and work better as separate offerings. You can think of them as being the same kind of tale if you wish, but their timeline is different. Besides, I was excited to introduce these characters outside the Stranger’s direct web of influence.

And sometimes… well… reasons.

Thanks again. I hope to have Episode 7.1 posted on Monday next week and return to my regular posting schedule for VMH at that time.