Day 84

Spoiler Alert! May contain planning-stage plot/character details or other spoilers!

05 Apr 2016

I’m starting to think that I should launch a ‘temporary’ platform hosted somewhere like Medium, and work on coding an ‘owned’ platform longer term. All things considered, I’ll probably have better reach and interaction using existing platforms to access an audience rather than trying to claw an audience over to a stand-alone site, but I feel like the sole-owned site has more value to publishers and as a place to integrate all the threads (social media, blogging, writing, journaling, coding etc.)

Wondering if there’s a way to/if it makes sense to get into reviewing and integrating or hosting the work of other writers somehow, without turning it completely into a hosted fansite. In a way, it makes less and less sense starting something new, since everything you could possibly target seems to already have a dedicated site, app or feed already, but climbing the ranks of users on someone else’s platform isn’t totally going to meet my needs.

Providing value is an issue too; what’s valuable to others? Does sharing my journey, compiling resources, providing samples count? I understand that you can’t project one-to-one results, but if there’s no overlap between potential fans/supporters/beta-readers/colleagues and the users of whatever value I can provide, isn’t that just taking away from time and energy I should be focusing in on making better stories?

Probably the way to go is split-testing - just try different avenues, channels, content, with an eye to outcomes over a pre-determined period of time. Or something like that.

Really time to get to work, though! The days and weeks are just pouring through my hands, and time is a finite resource. Already, I’m behind the schedule I set for myself (this week) - not yet at 75K words, not keeping up with my chapter/day target pace, and realizing all the time that things are being missed and need to be filled in, expanded on, corrected, adjusted…

And in the mean time, my brain and fingers keep getting slower and more clumsy as the allergens increase the pressure behind my eyes and I can’t breathe.

But the word count keeps going up. And the events keep counting down to the end of the first book, at the least. And if I keep writing, keep sitting down with the laptop, keep pushing forward, inevitably the end must come - and preferably before the days run out… right?

Wednesday

Start time: 10:45 am

Location: couch/living room

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