It’s Thursday, and I’ve gone from starting the week with a cushion to have the schedule strung out behind me. As I said at the start of the week,I’m taking a look at what can be changed.
In particular, I think I have to say that it’s MOARMU that trips me up. It’s frequently the last thing I write in a day, and if I try to hold myself to writing it earlier I end up not getting to the stuff after it.
When I first started it, my hope was that being less invested in the character than I am in Mackenzie would make it easier to write, but with how many times it’s ground to a halt, I think the opposite is true. I just don’t have the character down as well as I do her. It takes me longer to write a shorter story with him. Having a challenge, stretching myself as a writer, etc. is a good thing to do sometimes, but my satisfaction doesn’t equal your enjoyment if it doesn’t result in words on the page, does it?
If I get stuck on a character’s viewpoint in Void Dogs or Star Harbor, I can flip around to somebody else and then come back (and when I remember that I can do that, it’s much easier to do multiple updates a week). MOARMU doesn’t work that way.
I haven’t wanted to face this because my goal was to have the two stories following parallel tracks; MOARMU is coming up from behind as it is, so updating it less often than the parent series would just make it fall further and further behind.
So, I’m thinking I’m either going to have to change the schedule or the format or both. I haven’t decided where to go with this. I don’t want to abandon the characters and the plotlines I have in mind, but following the skirmish match it may go from the day to day story of Jamie’s life at MU to an anthology of important episodes in his life at MU (more like a traditional novel) or maybe even a mosaic of interlocking serials from different peoples’ point of view; after the skirmish match, change to another character, come back to Jamie for the dance, etc. It is, after all, “More Tales of MU”, not “Jamie’s Tales of MU”.
I know there are people who prefer MOAR to the original recipe MU and this might disappoint them; on the other hand, for those who prefer it because it gives a wider view of the world, maybe making it a mosaic story would make it even better. In any event, there are still significantly fewer people reading MOAR than reading the original, and with more frequent updates, the audiences for Void Dogs and Star Harbor are creeping up towards MOAR’s levels; cutting back on my commitment to telling Jamie’s story will allow me to nurture those.
I don’t know. I’m thinking about it. For now, I’m going to strike the remaining Mores off this week’s schedule and finish everything else that’s on it.
(You can give feedback on this at the Livejournal mirror.)
Edit-dendum:
Good feedback. I’m hearing a lot of people endorsing the mosaic idea and a lot of people saying they don’t want to lose Jamie or see his plotlines left hanging. I guess I can clarify a little that giving him the axe (doesn’t he already have that?) is not in the cards… what I’m looking at is ways to keep the story going forward when it keeps threatening to die on me. 
To the people who are saying that they would rather have more sporadic updates of Jamie’s story than lose it… that’s pretty much what the mosaic would be, except for the fact that during the times it’s “sporadic”, there would be something else to read.
I’m probably going to end up doing a combination of the things that have been mentioned. The mosaic focus would come around to Jamie when something interesting/important is going on from his side, and then move to somebody else when it isn’t, so if you read Jamie’s stories it would be a bit more novel-ish.
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