I’ve been steadily jabbing at the keyboard for Vengeance, My Heart, this serial gothic western (/not-western) fantasy bit of writing some of you have been kind enough to read. Thanks go out to you who have. Your readership and comments are much appreciated.
As of last night, I surpassed the wordcount of my recent return to writing serialized fiction, a bit of occult noir that is part of the Vivian Locke world, which I may or may not return to — I haven’t decided yet, as my head is entirely in this world right at the moment. The posts haven’t quite caught up with the written wordcount, but that’s by design. It gives me a chance to go back and fix continuity issues (usually only a sentence, maybe as little as a change in a single word), something I neglected to anticipate when I first started writing serial fiction in 2001, which resulted in an insurmountable hurdle at the time for a truly rotten story.
I really like how things are developing for this story, which is better than I expected when I set down with this idea of resurrecting a concept from around 1996, and did a “screen test” for in 2006. My worldbuilding and research notes are nearly on the same scale as the story itself, as I flesh out how things work. In a way, you can double the content to about 50k words written if you include those as well as the story as narrative.
Moving forward, I am considering not focusing on scheduling enough posts to complete an episode cycle each week. It was an arbitrary choice that doesn’t serve much function other than keeping things neat and tidy. And, seeing as my writing rhythm seems to have fallen into a 4-part episode, I should recognize that doesn’t fit neatly into a week anyway. So, I may migrate to 2-3 posts each week instead.
This series has been going well enough for me (it’s still up in the air for the readers), that I’m already looking beyond the current story arc to rough out where it might lead.
Do I worry that the readership is just not there for this kind of story? Or that it is not “good enough” to earn that readership? Certainly. Absolutely. I’ll adjust sharing what I write if it seems pointless to do so.
Am I enjoying myself writing it? Hell yes. It is a better pastime than I’ve engaged in for a while, taking up much of my spare time that would otherwise probably be just me playing videogames. So, I’m still engaged.
Those who have kept up, the end of the third episode is on the way in a few hours. Then, the atmospheric part of the narrative will take a back seat and we’ll get into the meat of things for a spell. Stick with me.
Oh, and yes… she does have a name. It just hasn’t quite found her yet. It might be a bit before it comes around for a visit.
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