Starwalker: Into the Second Week

Phew. Another week or two has slipped by, and I am way behind in my blog posting again. But never fear! Here I am!

Starwalker has got off to a rocking start. I keep looking at it and reeling, just a little bit, quietly, to myself. Allow me to explain.

Let’s start with the comments. It wasn’t until after I had started the Apocalypse Blog that I found out comments are a good idea. It was a conceptual decision and I didn’t realise that it was a good way to communicate with my audience (be gentle, it was my first blogfic!). With Starwalker, I was determined not to make that mistake and left the comments on. (Okay, they broke and it took me two days to fix them, but they’re all working now!)

Now, I have comments. More than that: I have good, positive comments. I can’t say how much this means! I was more nervous going into Starwalker than I have starting any other project, and it’s good to know that people are liking it.

I have been getting other feedback, too, and I’m grateful for all of it.

Then there’s the web stats. I check this a few times a week, mostly because the little graphs going up makes me happy. The Apocalypse Blog got off to a slow start, mostly because I had no idea what I was doing and no-one knew who I was. In its first two weeks, it got a grand total of 177 visitors. Starwalker is a week and a half old, and it’s had 247 visitors so far (with a higher return rate, too).

I’ve also had over 100 visitors a day for the last couple of days – something that took me two months to achieve in AB. Whoo-hoo!

Part of this is my existing audience and contacts, going over because I nudged them and they (hopefully) like my work. I also know a little bit more about where to advertise, and that’s helping too. And okay, maybe I teased people about it beforehand enough that they were almost as excited (and more excited, in some cases!) than I was to see the first post go up.

I’ve been busy over the past couple of weeks, trying to get all the links and listings in place. Here’s where I’m at so far:

• Muse’s Success – done and approved (go give me pretty stars!)
• Epiguide – done and approved
• Write Blog Fiction – done and approved (go give me pretty stars!)
• Web Fiction Guide – done and approved (go give me pretty stars!)
• Technorati – done and awaiting approval
• Blog Fiction – done and awaiting confirmation

I’ve also been spreading the word through my Twitter account and Facebook. I set up a Facebook fan page a couple of days ago, and that’s going well so far! I’m using it to send out notifications whenever a new post goes up on Starwalker (and will post when the AB shorts go up, too), so please go hook up there if you want to join in!

Also, it looks like the Web Fiction Guide have changed their submissions procedure (not sure when this changed, but it didn’t happen a year ago!). Now, they are having an editor give the fiction a rating and brief (incomplete) review when they approve the listing. So I have a 4-star (out of 5) editor rating and a really positive semi-review already! (On looking at other recent listings, that’s a high rating, too!)

So. It has been a busy couple of weeks. A lot has happened, and I’m pretty sure I’ve forgotten some of it. There are still places I need to advertise (some have minimum post requirements) and other stuff to sort out. I have to go back through my links to AB and make sure I’ve covered them with Starwalker.

Tomorrow’s SW post is already edited and scheduled to go up in the morning. This new project is going well, I think. I’ve even had time to start the first AB short story between SW posts.

Thanks to everyone who has encouraged me to get this far with Starwalker (and my other projects!). There is so much more to come and I can’t wait to take you there with me! I think tomorrow’s post sums up how I’m feeling right now. You’ll know when you see it.

Un-glitched

Been fighting with the Starwalker website over the past couple of days. The comments form was borking – for some reason, trying to submit a comment just sent you back to the homepage.

I checked everywhere I could think of. Compared code to the test site I had for the theme (where comments were working fine), replaced files, replaced code…. I hit up helpful friends who know a lot more codestuff than me, who pointed me in the right directions.

I wound up having to copy the theme files over to my test site one at a time, testing the comments after each one, to see which file contained the code that broke it. It took a little while, but I found the issue – the search form in the sidebar was overriding the comment form. Remove the search form, and it all works fine.

Huzzah! So now comments work on Starwalker. The one thing I didn’t think to test before it went live. Oops. Guess I won’t be making that mistake again! Thanks to those who offered help – it was much appreciated!

I might try to put the search form back in at some point (I think I know what was wrong with the code now, but, well. We’ll see). Do I really need one? Would anyone use a search on a blogfic?

The second post went up this morning. Friday’s is all scheduled and ready. Working on next week’s posts at the moment. So far, it’s going well, I think!

Starwalker begins!

The first post of Starwalker is now up and available for reading! Go, my lovelies, read and be amused!

Starwalker: starts tomorrow!

I can’t believe it’s February tomorrow. January has gone by so quickly, stuffed full of bits of this and that. I had hoped to have a rest, find my feet, and set myself up for the year’s challenges ahead. I think I’ve managed at least some of that. The rest is still a work in progress.

I’ve spent a lot of time doing background work for Starwalker. The nature of the new blogfic means that it requires a more solid setup than the Apocalypse Blog did – with AB, I had a lot more freedom to make stuff up on the fly. I also had a clearer idea about how the first couple of weeks of posts would go. Starwalker is different and, for me, harder.

I haven’t done a lot of hard scifi before. I’ve been reading books on astronomy and physics to try to get my head in the right place for this one. I don’t intend to put a lot of the science into it, but I do have to understand it! So far, it’s going good, and I’m gathering some interesting material.

I think the hardest part to put together has been the cast list. I had a couple of characters fairly solid in my head when the idea first formed, but fleshing out the rest of the crew of the Starwalker has been a challenge. I don’t usually do this much character prep! I’m more of a ‘toss them together and see what happens’ kind of writer when it comes to that. But as the blog takes place on board a spaceship, the crew and passengers are finite and fairly inflexible. Whatever I start with, I have to run with.

Thank goodness I took January off. I have the Cast page up now, with all the base stats of the story’s regular players. The About pages have been polished up for both the story and Starwalker. The Colonies page is there too, but I have yet to fill out the information on that one. That’ll probably be a work in progress for a little while as I tease out the details and feel the world out. I have a notebook full of notes that will eventually make it onto there. Some of it I don’t want to reveal yet!

I had hoped to have the first couple of weeks’ worth of posts written by now. As it stands, I have almost the first week done. I wound up with visitors and chores filling up yesterday, which was great fun (okay, the chores not so much, but the friends visiting, definitely). I don’t mind giving up writing time for that! Today, the CFS is biting hard, and I’ve been mostly resting and unable to focus enough to do something creative.

Instead, I edited the first post and got it scheduled up on the blog. It took me ages to format the damn thing – I have chosen an awkward format that requires some fiddling with code to make it look right. Hopefully it’ll publish the way I want it to, and it won’t be confusing (I’m going for clear and readable, not pretty). Luckily, there won’t be too many posts quite that heavy on the formatting (I won’t say why, but you’ll see in tomorrow’s post!).

I’m having fun with the setup of the SW fictional blog. There’ll be log entries from two or three of the crew (the chief engineer and the captain, and possibly one or two others) that Starwalker ‘peeks’ on, as well as the ship’s own logs. Conversations are going to be more like transcripts, done in script-format as if they’re recordings (I’m still toying with the style of that a bit).

It’s going to be different to anything I’ve written before. The more I think about it, the more I realise that this is a departure for me. AB was an experiment in discipline and a new format (blogfic), but a familiar way of storytelling. I hadn’t done a lot of first person before AB, but that’s not hard to fall into, especially when you’re doing it every day. For SW, I’m straying into hard scifi, a stricter setup, more characters to juggle, and a more rigid format.

The voice hasn’t come as easily as Faith’s did and getting the posts down has been a struggle. The 20-minute train commute isn’t long enough to get much of a flow going, especially with new characters, and a couple of times over the past couple of weeks, train system issues have meant that I haven’t been able to write on the commute at all. After I get home, I’m usually so tired that the last thing I want to do is write.

I think part of this year’s challenge is going to be getting past that hump. I should be able to get a post written every day, which will give me time to get other writing done as well. I have AB shorts to put together and a novel to edit. I think I need to set myself a schedule and be merciless about sticking to it. And kick this CFS in the ass, dammit.

9am tomorrow morning, Brisbane time, the first Starwalker post goes live. There’s no turning back then – I have to make it work! Head down, tail up, off we go.

I’m nervous about this one. With AB, I was exploring and excited. With SW, I have people waiting to read it, an audience I might disappoint, so the pressure is a lot higher. It’s fantastic and I’m lucky to have people who want to read my work! But I am nervous. Thank goodness Wordpress is going to post it for me – at least I don’t have to push the button myself!

Fingers crossed! I hope you all like it. Onwards into the black, my friends!

Apocalypse Blog Shorts

I have been pondering the idea of doing short stories in the Apocalypse Blog world for a while now. I’m definitely not ready to let go of that world and its characters yet – there are stories yet to tell, and I’m a storyteller.

But what, when, and who? These are questions that I’m throwing open to you, my happy readers.

The Starwalker planning is going well – there’s actually more spinning out there than I had anticipated, and I’m almost ready to sit down with a pinboard and a crapload of notecards. But I’ll save that stuff for another post. What all that means is that I’ve had a chance to start thinking about AB shorts and what I can do.

On the train ride home today, I scribbled down some ideas that have been percolating for a couple of days. Plans there for about four shorts – I’m not sure yet if they’ll come out as proper short stories, or just snippets that will make a story when read together (three of the ones I made notes on today are about Jersey, AB’s punch-happy little crossdresser).

WHAT – I see these as primarily character-centric stories. The things that happened when Faith wasn’t around. Retrospectives, telling the stories that happened before we met the characters. Also, current events are up for grabs (and future ones, possibly, depending on how much of a headache it gives me).

I’d like to explore different facets of the broken-down world. Maybe go into some of the background that the Seekers will never know about.

What subject would you like to see a short about?

WHEN – I have been thinking about a schedule. Knowing the way that I work, I am far more likely to do these shorts if I have a fixed schedule to post them by. So, once a month, I think. Let’s aim for the end of the month, in case I manage to get one done in the next couple of weeks and can get it sorted before February. No promises, but you never know your luck.

I hadn’t actually planned on doing 12 shorts, but after today’s little idea-splurging, I don’t think I’ll have a problem turning out that many. The main issue will be time.

Okay, no question on this one – most of it depends on everything else I’m doing.

WHO – This is a slightly trickier issue. I have a few characters that I know I can write about, and have some plans for. They are:

• Jersey and the Wolverines
• Masterson and his family
• Bree and the Pride.

I also have an idea for at least one new character, and am pondering a couple of the dead ones.

Who would YOU like to see a short about?

Suggestions welcome! Anyone whose idea gets picked up gets a cookie!

In the meantime, I’ll keep spinning out my plans and see what comes of it all.

Opinions wanted!

The Apocalypse Blog has finished. I’m still reeling (and not entirely sure what to do with myself today!).

But there’s no rest for the wicked and I’m very bad. I’ve been poking at the new blogfic for while now.

A little summary of the upcoming blogfic: it’s the ship’s log of the Starwalker, a ship with an experimental, space-folding drive, as recorded by the ship herself. She’s an AI with a few glitches, with a lot to learn, including how – and if – this new drive of hers works.

The site for Starwalker is up and just about in shape. Take a look!

I’m still fiddling with it (and obviously, the content isn’t all there yet), but I wanted to gather some opinions before I put it down. I think I’ve got the navigation and features that I want in there – any suggestions?

Things I’m not sure about:

• The font of the title. It’s kinda boring. Hmm.
• The date thingy.  I just don’t know if I like it or not. Maybe it’s just that the colours need to be changed. But that’s graphics and I’m terrible with those. Gah!

Also, on this one, I’m going to be allowing comments on the blog. I think it was a mistake not to allow them on AB (but I was too stubborn to go back on that decision ;) ), so we’ll see how it goes on the new one.

So, any thoughts on the site? Criticisms, suggestions, preferences?