The Future Blogging Game Plan Thing: Opinions Welcome

As I mentioned on Twitter the other day, I've started putting together a new structure for my online writing.  Today, I offer up one possible restructuring effort.  Your opinions are always welcome, even if you fundamentally disagree with the whole endeavor.

On a side note:  I do plan to move this blog to its own website soon (to coincide with my own personal site).  I don't know if I will keep the World in the Satin Bag name, though I probably should.

Here is the structure I'm considering:

A Long List of Writing/Blogging Projects I Want to Do

As you may recall, I mentioned that I had started to reconsider the future of this blog and my various blogging/podcasting/writing projects.  The conversation preceding and surrounding that post have led me here:  a post about the things I would like to do.

Obviously, I cannot do all of these things, but I know these are projects I want to complete or pursue at some point in my life.  Your opinions on anything listed here is greatly appreciated.  If anything leaps out at you as something you'd really be interested in, let me know in the comments.  You're also welcome to suggest things, as it's possible I've forgotten something.

On the Future of This Blog and My Bid for World Domination

Earlier today, I had a rather revealing conversation with Jay Garmon, Fred Kiesche, and Paul Weimer about Patreon, blogging, and being successful at both (Patrick Hester was also there, but he just wanted to talk about donuts...).  As you know, I have a Patreon page.  Over the last week or so, I've been wondering why it hasn't been more successful given that this blog does have a few hundred readers and that I think I'm providing good content for sf/f-minded folks.  Granted, I never expected anything nearly as successful as Kameron Hurley's $800-and-climbing Patreon page for obvious reasons:  she's selling fiction (I'm not, though I wish I were); she's sf/f famous (I'm kinda not really); and she has enough follows to drown a human being in a pool of bodies (I don't).  But I thought it might be a little more successful.

The Fictioning: I actually wrote something! Ahaha!

If you missed it on Twitter, I actually wrote some new fiction last night for the first time in months.  I've been fiddling with the idea for a YA space opera featuring a wheelchair bound combat expert and his tech-savvy sibling.  I won't ruin the plot, but I will say this:  there will be a mecha wheelchair, space battles, and good old adventure with a healthy side of character development.

And if that sounds of interest, here are the first few paragraphs in rough draft form (click to view a larger version):

Now back to writing stuff...

On Procrastination: The Evil One

It'll come as no surprise to anyone that I have a procrastination problem.  As you may well know, I'm working on my PhD in English, which requires me to write a 200-250 page dissertation.  My dissertation is mostly pretty awesome:  my first few chapters explore the work of Tobias Buckell, Nalo Hopkinson, and Karen Lord; the last few chapters explore early Caribbean writings in dialogue with contemporary Caribbean science fiction (particularly Michel Maxwell Philip's Emmanuel Appadocca and Mary Seacole's Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands).  Needless to say, I'm actually stoked about the project as a whole, even if I'm having the hardest time actually writing the bloody thing.

I Have a Patreon Page: Show Me Your Love (Or Something Less Creepy)

It happened.  I said I would do it, and so I have.

I've created a Patreon page so you'll all show me how much you really love me, but on a slightly more regular basis.

There are "goals" I'd like to achieve -- namely, being able to focus more on blogging about the things I love than spending time on things that stress me out.  Ultimately, this is about being able to do more of the things I like doing and less of the things I don't like doing, which comes down to what the folks who read this blog think about everything.

In any case, this is just part one of a two-part journey to secretly switch careers while everybody is looking!  If you like what I do on this blog, feel free to support my Patreon page.  We'll see how the year progresses :)

Blogging, Patreon, Life: Thinking About Things...Publicly!

I originally posted the following on Google+, but I decided to crosspost it here to get input from folks who are subscribed to this blog.  Anywhoodles:

So, Patreon.  In the last week or so, I've been giving serious thought to using it, partly because my look back at my blogging work in 2014 made me realize how much attention has been diverted from it and partly because I know why so much of my attention has been diverted away from it:  financially, I have to work more just to meet basic needs (which aren't looking good this year, by the way -- thanks to having a job which doesn't provide dental!).  So, last year, I taught more classes to cover expenses (and to make it so I could travel a little bit) and to get some things I really need (honestly, having a car has made a lot of things in my life a lot easier).  So the blog got shoved back a bit.  I had the podcasting thing.  The blog could hold off.  The closest thing I had to "funding" this kind of thing was my trip to London for Worldcon. 

But I actually like blogging.  I like talking about sf/f movies and books.  When I'm not worried about work or unexpected medical bills, I'm excited to talk about the things that I love.  I just wish I could do more of that and less of the stuff that stresses me out. 

As such, I've been trying to figure out how I can correct this.  To reduce my teaching load so I can spend more time doing what I find produces less stress.  And right now, I'm seriously considering Patreon.  Not just for blogging, but for podcasting, too (not The Skiffy and Fanty Show, though; different stuff).  Creating content = yes, please. 

I suppose this is a kind of weird way to probe the folks who follow me on G+ on what they think of the idea.  If using that could mean producing more content (on my blog, on my G+ -- in blog or podcast form (or both)), would you consider supporting it?  Or is this just a really bad idea?

2014 in Review (Stats, Data, Yikes): A Lax Year

I'm a bit late to the party here, but I figured since I set so many goals for myself this year, I should actually talk about what my 2014 looked like in terms of blogging.  In brief:  2014 was not a particularly good year for me as a blogger, which isn't actually a surprise.  I've been a somewhat lax blogger for the past few years, in part because I've diverted so much of my attention to The Skiffy and Fanty Show and to Twitter conversations.  There has also been a fair amount of burnout from time to time, particularly when the blogging community started to tank a few years back (it seems to have stabilized now).  That said, looking at my statistics, it's clear where my blog fell off the train in 2014, which gives me insight into how I might improve the blog in 2015.

But in case you want the really long-winded version, here you go:

Why I Stopped Paying Attention to Feedburner Subscriber Numbers

Readers of this blog probably haven't noticed, but the little chicklet/button for Feedburner disappeared from my sidebar about a month ago.  The Twitter one, however, has stayed fixed in place (mostly so people can easily find my account; the feeds for my blog are linked above the Twitter gizmo).  There's a good reason, too.

One of the things that I have noticed since the disappearance of Google Reader is the unreliability of Feedburner subscriber numbers.  They've never been terribly reliable, for sure, but the death of GR resulted in a massive drop off in subscriber numbers for my blog, and, it seems, a whole lot of weird fluctuations throughout the blogosphere.  For example, in a matter of hours (yesterday), SF Signal's subscriber numbers went from 19k, then down to 4k, then up to nearly 21k, then down to 15k, and so on.  For a site like SF Signal, I suppose those drops are meaningless, since the popularity of the blog can be easily measured via other means (a vibrant comments section

Draft Post Bingo: What should I finish? You Decide!

I've been sitting on over 50 draft posts for a while now.  Some of these have been around for years, either because I couldn't complete them (which explains why they are not listed below) or because I forgot about it.  So here's the deal:  I've listed a whole bunch of these posts below, and you're going to help me pick the ones that get finished next.  All you need to do is a leave a comment with your favorites (you can list the numbers; pick no more than five or six, just to make it reasonably).  You're free to offer your reasons, though it's not required.

Here's the list:

Top 10 Blog Posts for March (Or, Weirdness You People Like in a 30 Day Span)

And they are:

10.  The SF/F and Related Blogs You Read
9.  Adventures in...Cancer?:  If Only You'd Been Bad Asthma (Or, Leading Up to Diagnosis -- Part Two)
8.  Hugo Award:  What I Nominated
7.  Literary Explorations:  What the hell is a "strong female character"?
6.  Poll:  The Retro Nostalgia Film (#7)
5.  Death Star Economics and Ethics? (Or, What Would You DO With a Death Star?)
4.  Link of the Day:  Liz Bourke on (Male) Rape in Epic Fantasy
3.  Hugo Awards Finalists (Plus Preliminary Thoughts)
2.  Top 10 Overused Fantasy Cliches
1.  Top 10 Cats in Science Fiction and Fantasy

I'm not sure what to make of this mishmash of old and new.  Either certain posts of mind continue to have some kind of lasting impact or aliens have set up some kind of auto-refresher that changes IPs so I can feel special about a blog.  The latter makes no sense...

April should be equally interesting, methinks.

ICFA (Are You Going?) and Disappeared Shaun (Temporary!)

Two things:

1. I am presenting at this year's ICFA (International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts).  That means I will be rather busy this week with, well, paper stuff, conference stuff, and stuff stuff.  However, if you are attending ICFA and would like to get together, send me an email or leave a message or something.  Should be fun!
   
   (FYI:  I'm presenting a paper on the adaptation of Cloud Atlas.  I'm also creating a list which will include that film.  Mwahaha.)
   
2. Due to #1 and to some PhD stuff I need to finish, I am putting the blog on a temporary hiatus.  And I mean temporary.  At most, I'll post nothing new until the end of next week.  However, I strongly suspect I'll be back at my old games on Sunday or Monday.  In any case, that means all the stuff I had planned to post this week is getting moved until later, including the Retro Nostalgia feature.  I just don't have the time to put my heart into it right now (PhD stuff, conference stuff, and teaching stuff = super busy Shaun).
   
   Again, this is temporary.  I am not disappearing.  This blog will fill up with my nonsense before the end of the month.  Promise.

And that's that.

Becoming Pretentious Over Time -- Cue Pipes, Long Diatribes About Literature, and Writing

Fact One:  Apparently button-up shirts, nice ties, nice sweaters, and nice slacks are my new thing.  They're so much "my new thing" that I'm wearing them even though I have no intention of leaving the house (I'm currently sitting at a table on a houseboat that overlooks the Columbia).

Hello!  I'm a houseboat on the Columbia.  You'll have to excuse
me for not having anything green growing.  It's winter, which
typically means that nature decides to hibernate...unless you
live in Florida, where nature is constantly trying to kill you...

I see all this as my slow decline into pretentiousness.  Call it an evolutionary pathway for all PhD students.  The longer you stay in academia, the more likely you are to fall into its grasp, from which no human being can escape!

And if I'm falling into the pretentious hole of wonders, where my days are spent contemplating my research or the literary merits of obscure small press novels (hey, they're good, so shut up), then I might as well embrace it, right?  No?  Really?  Oh.  Good.  Glad that's settled.

All this is a really abstract way of explaining that things are changing around these parts.  I've finished with Fall Semester's insane grading cycle and have begun this thing they call vacation.  At some point, I'm going to start writing fiction again, because I'll have the time to actually think about stories and narrative and characters (90 hour work weeks make that somewhat difficult, to be honest).

On top of that, I'm going to do some more reading (partly for interviews I've got lined up with some amazing folks and partly for my own enjoyment).

And some where in all that, I'll blog about more literature-related stuff (some SF/F, some not), more movies, more things that interest me (and, by extension, you).  Wish me luck or something.

-------------------------------------------------------

P.S.:  If there must be a second fact, it is this -- somewhere in all this strangeness is an elf with a missing sock; he wants it back and will kill for it.  Watch yourselves.

Adventures in Writing: So Begins a New Project (of Doom)

I've also started a new writing project, which I'm tentatively calling The Last Fable of Maxine Swansey, which takes place (currently) over three different time periods in a character's life (1984, 2050, and 2155). I may add more time periods, and possibly other characters across the years inbetween. I don't know.

What I do know is that the writing style for this piece is nothing like anything I've written before. It combines stream of consciousness and a literary writing structure reminiscent of someone like Pynchon or Salman Rushdie (more Rushdie than Pynchon at the moment -- these are just comparisons to give an impression of the style I'm working with, not an assessment of quality or an admission of copycat behavior). I'm not sure why I'm doing this, though I like how inserting stream of consciousness in the middle of third person does some interesting things to destabilize the narrative (in a way that I think works). We'll see what happens as I continue to write this thing.

Point is:  I'm having fun doing something weird, but also mundane. There's a lot of intersection between the everyday and the strange, and the often fuzzy border that exists between the two (the first chapter involves a character discovering a man in a random Spanish courtyard trying to convince people he has learned how to control animals through martial art dance -- in this case, a bull -- and there's all kinds of other weirdness going on, too -- coincidences upon coincidences, some strange technology, odd characters, and so on and so forth).

And that, I think, is what I really need. I need to have fun just writing something. Something I can insert more of my life into, as writers are wont to do.

Anywho. What are you all up to?

My PhD Reading List -- For the Exams of Doom

Obviously, I'm in this thing called a PhD program.  In English (not Creative Writing).  And that means I have to take a series of exams (half written component and half oral).  As such, it's necessary for me to have a reading list of primary and secondary texts (in my case, literature for the primary and theory/history/architecture for the secondary -- some English majors do it the other way around).

Before I give you the list, it might be important to tell you want I'm doing.  I am studying the spatial organization of empire in the Caribbean.  In other words, I want to know how empires constructed themselves as physical and social spaces and how that reflects in the literature of Caribbean peoples.  That's the short version anyway.

Now for the list:

Live-writing: Experiments Be Fun

For the curious, I've been doing irregular live-writing sessions for a short story to appear on this blog called "Lendergross and Eaves" (a weird fantasy crime noir involving a toad-person drug lord and a female police inspecter--the latter of these is to be played by my friend Jen).  Live-writing is more or less like it sounds:  I create a Google Doc, share the link with everyone, and then for 30 minutes do nothing but write while random strangers watch me and read up on my progress.

Thus far, the experiment has been fantastic.  I've written a considerable amount (about 2,000 words in two sessions) and have decided to open up the comments feature so people can ask me questions while I'm writing.  In other words, I'm loving it.

For anyone interested in watching me work, or seeing my progress on your own time, all you have to do is go to this link.  I will announce live-writing sessions on my Twitter and Google+ pages.  And if you show up during one of those sessions, feel free to leave a comment with a question!

Anywho!.

Adventures in Worldbuilding: Genealogical Obsessions

For those that don't know (which might be almost all of you), I have jokingly said that I am working on a 25-novel (1,000-page per book) epic fantasy series. In truth, said series will likely be 4 or 5 books, but that depends on how many subplots I decide to include.

Lately, I've been trying to build up the world, particularly the genealogical history of some of the main characters (it's relevant, since one of the POVs is The Bespectacled King, whose family have only recently risen back to the King's seat with said bespectacled person). This has no been easy, as there aren't many software programs that I've found that make it easy to create a chart following the familial line visually first (Freemind sort of works, but it's not designed to easily follow the lines of sons and marriages, and so on).

And, of course, I've bitten off more than I can chew. Of the four most powerful families in one of the kingdoms of my fantasy world, the first generation of children consists of 20 true blood sons (haven't started on the bastards yet...). No way to keep this all clear without better software (suggestions anyone?).

What about all of you? What adventures are you having exploring other people's worlds, or building your own?

The Preliminary PhD Reading List: Hard Times Ahead (or, Yay Caribbean Literature)

If you didn't know, I've been hard at work putting together my committee and reading list for my PhD exams, which I intend to take in March or April of next year.  The list will likely change in the next few weeks, given feedback from my director, but I thought you'd all like to see what I'm up to academically.

For those that don't know, I am writing my PhD on the relationship between the Caribbean and the space of Empire (spatiality).  In particular, my work will be an attempt to conceptualize how Empire is spatially constructed and how such constructions are reflected in the literature and resisted/manipulated/etc. by Caribbean peoples/characters/authors/etc.  The idea is to (hopefully) mold together my work on Hopkinson and Buckell for the MA into a larger project on Caribbean literature.

With that in mind, here is the list I've so far constructed.  Feel free to offer suggestions of your own, as this reading list is only for my exams and not necessarily for my final project.

Here goes:

WISB Shorts: Which do you want first?

I'm starting up the WISB Project again.  This year, I am going to finish it.  Through and through.  That means four new short stories set in Traea, and a full novel podcast, with an ebook release.  And to make up for life's complexities, I will give anyone who donated $5 or more a copy of the ebook for The World in the Satin Bag (and the deal applies to anyone else who decides to donate in the future).  I won't be pushing for donations this time, around, though.  Donate if you want.  All I really want is to hear from people.  If you like a story, or a chapter, leave a comment.

But for now, I need some direction.  I have four short stories in the works for the project, ranging from pre-WISB eras to distant futures (though still very much in the realm of fantasy).  Based on the following descriptions, which would you want to read first?  You can leave extended answers in the comments, if you are so inclined.

Here goes:

WIP Snippet: "Great is the History of the Many-Skilled Artistes"

Folks following me on Twitter will know that I have been working on a short story entitled "Great is the History of the Many-Skilled Artistes" (a working title).  The story was inspired by one of my graduate school classes this semester.  I'm still working on it, and expect it to be completed next month (once finals are done and over with).

The following is the first of four sections in the story.  Do let me know what you think in the comments!

Here goes: