Science Fiction Soap Opera Serial

I’ve been getting encouragement to serialize one of my stories on the internet. This is a use of the internet that I’ve been watching with interest, but uncertain if I should try my hand at it. With the encouragement I mentioned, I have decided to dive in.

In the last few years, I’ve heard of authors who wrote each installment of their serial moments before they were due to post that installment. That was part of what scared me about this process; I know perfectly well my first draft is NOT ready to be read by anybody. I expect At Least 3 rewrites before it might be suitable to be seen.

Once I realized that, I looked through what stories I had, either ‘done’ or nearly done, to decide which one I would serialize: No, those are all shorts; that’s a long short, but not long enough; this one is long enough, and done, but is currently out looking for a home. Hmmmm.

It’s surprising how few novel length works I have finished (1). I have 2 or 3 others ‘in the works’, meaning about half of the rough draft is done. And then I remembered Mac.

I have said I would probably never publish Mac. I have also said that when I work on Mac’s story, I get sucked in so deeply, I can’t get any work done on anything else. But the truth is that “Mac, Book 1” is mostly done, except for a few highly emotional scenes at the end that I simply didn’t feel capable of writing a decade ago when I last worked on it. Since then, I have roughed the first 100 pages of “Mac, Book 2” and the first 25 pages of “Mac, Book 3”. So, I know where Mac is headed, and apparently, I don’t HAVE to spend months and months at a time enmeshed in Mac’s problems.

For the last couple weeks, I have been working on preparing the story into ‘bite-sized’ sections. I have also continued to rewrite some shorts and work on another novel. It seems Mac has learned to share my attention.

So, “Mac, Book 1” will start being serialized on Tuesday, 1January2013. I am setting it up on Blogspot, and will make a Grand Announcement on New Year’s Day, so watch for it. I am trying for installments of about 1,000 to 1,200 words, and I will post one each Tuesday. If people get engrossed in Mac’s antics and don’t want to wait an entire week for the next section, I will post a price for the next section to be posted early, probably about $10. I am not proposing that 1 person must send me the full amount; the readers could use the comments section to alert each other to how much they are chipping in. As soon as I receive the payment, I will post the next section.

I think you’ll like Mac. She’s a lot of fun. Or a constant irritant. And sometimes both.