Had meant to keep up my momentum on the novel with a couple of new installments each week, but I see it’s been a full week already since my last one. Oh, well. Life intrudes.
Of course, the novel itself is intruding, too, ironically. I don’t know how most people write novels, but as I’ve mentioned before, a lot of this is being done as I go. That is, I have no outline, and only a few set-in-stone events and outcomes to anchor me as I go. One side effect of this is that at times, I am struck by an irresistible need to write scenes that are for future installments rather than the next one in line. As inspiration hits me, I feel like I need to go with the flow and not lose a good rhythm, rather than force myself to write the next installment. Further confusing the non-linear progression of the writing of my novel is that fact that I’ve started to go back and do some re-writes of the earliest chapters now. So, at any given time, I’m living in the present, future and past of my novel, and it’s starting to confuse me. 😉
As I pull together the next installment of the novel in the next day or two, be comforted (if you’re a fan) in the fact that I’ve updated the portal area for the novel with two new informational items:  How the Vatican and the Terran Catholic Church operate and A glossary of occupations, social roles, titles and other people-related terms  in the novel.
Deacon Blue
Inda Pink
D.B. How is posting a novel online working for you? Are you getting many readers? Any notice?
It’s hard to know how many readers I have. I can’t trust the stats for the individual installments, because some of my readers catch the installments by reading them on the main blog page instead of going directly to the individual blog post. Honestly, I figure I have between 10 and 15 actual loyal readers. Which considering my traffic around here, which has usually been around 50-60 “real” readers a day (as opposed to people who get here accidentally via image searches), isn’t bad.
I never really expected to get any notice from the publishing world or anyone with critical literary credentials or anything like that. It started more as an exercise in finally getting off my ass, more than 20 years post-high-school, and write a novel like everyone among my family and friends always expected I would. Doing it this way took some pressure off me, as it made sense to release the novel a scene or two (or three) at a time this way. Not so scary that way.
When all is said and done, I will try to see if anyone will publish it. I’m not too worried that it will have been online already, since my readership is small and this is, truly, a first draft and I expect the final version to have some substantial differences. I figure my chances are just as bad this way getting published as with any other first time author. 😉