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jmsparrow in Journal

New Plan

I’m trying to find ways to continue posting on Prose. It is a very useful site for my writing purposes, and worth the effort of replanning how to post my stories. Most works I have posted were my own random ideas, but sometimes, because of Prose’s community, I wrote down the stories or thought of new ones.

It takes some finagling for me to subscribe to Prose, although the $17.99 paywall is very reasonable. I forget exactly how much the higher paywall was, but it is completely beyond my budget, even if I cut out the few things that I don’t strictly need. Mom and Dad kindly and spontaneously paid for this year’s Prose $17.99 subscription. By next year, I will have to either pay for the subscription myself or periodically subscribe for one month and post stories, then let the subscription lapse. When I told Mom the plan, she thought it was a bad idea, hence delaying it for a year. Also, now I have enough time to save up for next year’s subscription.

I do writerly things from 9:00 or 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM Monday-Wednesday and Friday-Saturday, with enough short breaks to keep my brain functional. On average, 3-4 50-minute blocks are for actual writing, editing, and worldbuilding, 1-hour is for reading, and the rest of the time is for writing more or doing other miscellaneous things, like studying English, organizing, researching, and fiddling with ideas. Writing happens on bad days or tolerable days because the text always requires editing later, however competent it appears at the time. Editing on a bad health day is difficult, and I overlook important things, so I prefer editing on a tolerable or good day. Worldbuilding happens as needed, when stuck, or when time allows for curiosity. Postable writing happens on tolerable days. Sometimes I write longer, and on Thursdays and Sundays.

My output is already low because I edit as thoroughly as possible and have limited days in which to edit well. Editing is mentally exhausting, which slows me down. Posting stories will slow down post-Wolftown, since I will have a one-week vacation and spend the next three weeks writing without deadlines. Wolftown has taken much, much longer than expected to write, and I haven’t had a break from writing in a while. Missing a deadline for health reasons is not actually a break—I’m still dragging myself through the work.

Until I finish Wolftown, I can afford Prose’s paywall, but after that, I probably won’t be able to afford a monthly subscription. I will continue posting Wolftown because cutting off a serial story early would irritate me as a reader. Probably, Wolftown will end in August or September. It was supposed to be a short story, but Wayne talks too much, John rarely says no, and Schuster accidentally became a point-of-view character.

After that, I will be revising and editing a novel, Glyndŵr Rises, and monetize it. The novel should be ready 12-18 months after the post-Wolftown break. It is set in the 2140s British Isles, which France has conquered and rules with a totalitarian regime. The British monarchy died or refused to claim the throne. According to legend, Owain Glyndŵr will rise from the dead and save Wales in its most dangerous time, and King Arthur will do the same for Britain. They appear as visions to two of their descendants, Charles Morgan and Persephone Winters, who happen to be surprisingly close friends. Charles is a French Army veteran, and Persephone is a classicist with no military experience; despite spending over half their lives under French rule and subject to indoctrination and conditioning, they object to the government’s policies. France is a military superpower that can invade and conquer small countries in a month; revolutionaries and other political opponents are routinely killed or arrested and mistreated; the French military and government commit war crimes and crimes against humanity. Even reading about revolutions is illegal, and a police state with highly advanced surveillance obviously interferes with overthrowing the government. Because Charles and Persephone are not members of the British royal family, their revolution would make Wales an independent country, but if their revolution failed, anybody in Wales could suffer the consequences, regardless of a person’s actual involvement.

Postern is a rough Cold Curtain story about one of Charles’ experiences in the French Army. It also features Persephone and some other important characters. Before entering the challenge held by @thWanderer, I knew that Charles (1) had a Croix de Guerre for a military action that an infantry soldier in any army might do, (2) that it involved taking a machine gun position, (3) that he did not discuss it until George found the medal in a junk box, (4), Charles couldn’t be bothered to return the medal when the French Army rescinded it because, although he didn’t want the Croix de Guerre in the first place, he rarely had a chance to mildly irritate France.

Unrelated to the Cold Curtain stories, I have two partially finished stories and a few contenders for a science fiction story.

· Horror: Oliver is given a toy dragon for Christmas, and he names the dragon Chester. At first, Oliver and Chester seem to show only a great deal of imagination.

· Fantasy: A young mother needs to feed her starving baby, younger siblings, and eventually herself, and potentially the other villagers. It is a fairy tale based on Baba Yaga, Hansel and Gretel, European fairy tales about famine, hunger, or starvation, and the Volcanic Winter of 536. Its setting is inspired by continental European Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages without Christianity (anywhere in the world).

They and one science fiction story will be posted as soon as possible while consistently working on Glyndŵr Rises, although science fiction might be delayed. I like science fiction but have always been a humanities person, and so writing science fiction tends to require more effort and time than other speculative fiction genres.

I also want to write another story about the Overflower; a challenge held by @AJAY9979 gave me an excuse to write about him in The Overflower vs. the Grape. The Overflower tends to perform smaller heroic acts or do things which do not seem heroic, and sometimes his actions have absolutely nothing to do with his powers. He can be character-driven, which I’m terrible at writing, and, unfortunately, he can be boring.

Marcus on Calospelegna was for a challenge held by @Prose. Because I didn’t want to write a story about a psychopath or sociopath, which seemed to be the most obvious options, I wasn’t going to enter. While vaguely wondering what the other alternatives were, I thought that Ancient Greek and Roman pantheons caused quite a bit of chaos, and speculated about might happen if they attempted to fix their problems by committee instead of unilaterally or through hatching plans against each other. Other ancient pantheons had similar issues, and thanks to the Roman Empire, combining them was sensible. I have a few ideas about the Crescent Sea, but they will definitely require more time than the dragon, famine, or Overflower stories. On the other hand, taking inspiration from ancient history intimidates me much less than science.

The fewer stories I post, the fewer justifications I have for subscribing to Prose. Also, it doesn’t make sense to ask readers to subscribe to me unless they will have a sizeable story or segment at least monthly, or possibly an archive.

Writing is the best employment option because of chronic health problems (except that the average writer still needs another job). My writing is too low-quality to sell yet, in my opinion; my standards should be much higher than they are. The stories might meet readers’ standards, but I’m not comfortable selling incompetent work. That’s why none of my stories require payment to read my work yet; if people think a story is competent, that’s fine, and I appreciate their opinions.

Since October, 2023, I’ve been writing, editing, and worldbuilding as much as possible because I learn through practice and experimentation. Growing up, my parents ensured I was comfortable with the English language in various situations and for various purposes—and my output would be extremely low without that background, and writing and editing would be frustrating otherwise. Also, now I know approximately how much I can sustainably write and edit in a given time frame. I’m getting better at identifying underlying reasons for unproductivity and finding solutions.

Writing feels much more comfortable now, and I’m making reliable progress. Hopefully, by working on a novel and shorter works simultaneously, eventually I will have a consistent queue of things to post. I’m not sure if the idea will work, but it seems worth an attempt. If the idea fails, I can still post on Novelo and Booksie. Even if I can’t stay on Prose, the time I spent here will give me good writing experience.